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WILLIAM  WHITE 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 


PRESENTED  BY 

PROF.  CHARLES  A.  KOFOID  AND 
MRS.  PRUDENCE  W.  KOFOID 


7 


THE    STORY 


OF 


A   GREAT   DELUSION, 


EDWARD     JENNER. 

From  the  statue  by  Montevcrde. 


THE    STORY 


OF 


A  GBEAT  DELUSION 


IN  A  SERIES  OF  MATTER-OF-FACT  CHAPTERS. 


BY  WILLIAM  WHITE. 


All  the  world  assenting,  and  continually  repeating  and  reverberating,  there 
soon  comes  that  singular  phenomenon,  which  the  Germans  call  Swarmery,  or  the 
"Gathering  of  Men  in  Swarms,"  and  what  prodigies  they  are  in  the  habit  of  doing 
and  believing,  when  thrown  into  that  miraculous  condition.  .  .  . 

Singular,  in  the  case  of  human  swarms,  with  what  perfection  of  unanimity  and 
quasi-religious  conviction  the  stupidest  absurdities  can  be  received  as  axioms  of 
Euclid,  nay  as  articles  of  faith,  which  you  are  not  only  to  believe,  unless  malignantly 
insane,  but  are  (if  you  have  any  honour  or  morality)  to  push  into  practice,  and 
without  delay  see  done,  if  your  soul  would  live  ! — THOMAS  CARLYI.E. 


LONDON: 

E.    W.    ALLEN,    4   AVE    MARIA   LANE. 
1885. 


GLASGOW : 

HAY   NISBET   AND   CO.,    PRINTERS, 
STOCKWELL  STREET, 


CONTENTS. 


INTRODUCTION.  PAOE 

Prefatory,         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...  ix 

Variolation,      ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...  x 

The  Precursor  of  Vaccination,         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...  xi 

Immediate  Triumph  of  Vaccination,          ...         ...         ...         ...  xii 

Jenner's  Procedure, xiii 

Horsegrease  Cowpox, ...         ...         ...         ...         ...  xiv 

Rej ection  of  Jetmer 's  Prescription ,...         ...         ...         ...         ...  xiv 

Jenner's  Transformation,      xv 

Horsegrease  Cowpox  kept  out  of  Sight,    ...         ...         ...         ...  xvi 

Spurious  Cowpox,       ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...          ..  xvi 

Horse  Virus  Vindicated,       xvii 

Which  shall  it  be  ?      xviii 

Smallpox  Cowpox,      ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ..  xix 

Condemnation  of  Smallpox  Cowpox,          ...         ...           ..         ...  xx 

Cowpox  Revived,        xxi 

A  Cowpox  Charlatan,            ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...  xxii 

A  Decorous  Unanimity,         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...  xxiii 

Jenner's  Successive  Disclaimers,     ...         ...         ...         ...         ...  xxiv 

Smallpox  made  milder,          ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...  xxvi 

Punctures,  one  or  several,     ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...  xxvi 

Mr.  Rigby's  Protest,  ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...  xxvi 

Mr.  (Marks)  Marson, xxviii 

Mr.  Alexander  Wheeler's  Researches,        ...         ...         ...         ...  xxix 

Mr.  Enoch  Robinson's  Opinion,       ...         ...         ...         ...         ...  xxx 

Cruelty  of  Marking,   ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...  xxx 

Revaccination  Introduced,    ...         ...         ...         ...  xxxi 


vi  CONTENTS. 


Vaccinisation,  ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         •••          •••  xxxii 

Absurdity  of  Revaccination,             ...          ...         ...         ..           ...  xxxii 

The  Reduction  of  Smallpox,             xxxiii 

Has  Vaccination  saved  Life  ?            ...         ...         ...         ...         ...  xxxiii 

Who  are  the  Un vaccinated?... xxxiv 

Unvaccinated  Death-rates, xxxv 

Nurses  exempt  from  Smallpox,        xxxvi 

Pock-marked  Faces, xxxvii 

Vaccinia  a  real  Disease,         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...  xxxix 

Vaccinal  Fatalities, xl 

Vaccinia  Modified  in  its  Recipients,           ...         xli 

Vaccinia  plus  other  Disease, ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...  xlii 

Statistical  Evidence  of  extra  Disease,         ...         ...         ...         ...  xliii 

Vaccinia  aggravates  Disease,            ...         ...         ...         ...         ...  xlv 

Origin  of  Compulsory  Vaccination, ...         ...         ...         ...         ..  xlv 

Resistance,  Inflexible  Resistance,    ...         ...         ...         ...         ...  xlvi 

Compulsory  Education  and  Vaccination,  ...         ...         ...         ...  xlvii 

Conditions  of  the  Conflict, xlviii 

A  Word  for  the  Author,        ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...  xlix 

L'Envoi,            ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...  xlix 

Dr.  Garth  Wilkinson's  Catechism, 1 

I. — VARIOLATION. 

CHAPTER  I. — Cotton  Mather  and  Zabdiel  Boylston,  ...         ...  1 

II. — Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu,          ...  ...         ...  8 

III. — Maitland's  Experiments,          ...         ...  ...         ...  12 

IV.— The  First  Opponents  of  Inoculation,            21 

V. — Collapse  of  Inoculation,           29 

VI. — Revival  of  Inoculation,             ...         ...  ...         ...  36 

VII. — Triumph  of  Inoculation,          ...         ...  ...         ...  45 

VIII. — Inoculation  Abroad,      ...         ...         ...  ...         ...  56 

IX. — Inoculation  superseded  and  suppressed,  ...         ...  66 

X.— As  to  the   Prevalence   of    Smallpox  in  the   18th 

Century,          ...         ...         ...         ...  ...         ...  76 


CONTENTS.  vii 


II. — VACCINATION.  PAGE 

CHAPTER  I. — Jenner's  Earlier  Years,          91 

1L—  Jenner's  Inquiry,  1798,           103 

III.—  Jenner  in  1798,            127 

IV. — Pearson's  Inquiry,       ...         ...         ...         ...         ...  136 

V. — Wood ville,  Pearson,  and  Jenner,     ...         ...         ...  145 

VI. — Jenner's  Further  Observations,         ...         ...         ...  152 

VII.— Operations  in  London,  1800, 159 

VIII.— Triumph  of  the  New  Inoculation, 171 

IX. — A  Dishonourable  Transformation, 177 

X. — Jenner  before  Parliament,  1802,      ...         ...         ...  183 

XI. — Pearson's  Examination,         ...         ...         ...         ...  197 

XII.— Observations  on  the  Position  in  1802,        ...         ...  208 

XIII.  —  The  Royal  Jennerian  Society,          218 

XIV.  —Application  to  Parliament  for  Jenner's  Relief,  1806,  230 
XV.— Report  of  the  Royal  College  of  Physicans,            ...  235 

XVI.  -Jenner  Relieved,  1807,           243 

XVII.— Vaccination  Established  and  Endowed,     250 

XVIII. — Horsegrease  as  a  source  of  Vaccine,           ...         ...  259 

XIX.— John  Birch,       274 

XX.— Goldson  and  Brown, 283 

XXL— Moseley,  Rowley  and  Squirrel,        289 

XXII.— William  Cobbett,        303 

XXIIL— The  Grosvenor  Case, 317 

XXIV.-Dr.  John  Walker, 322 

XXV.— Jenner's  Later  Writings,       333 

XXVI.— Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,          349 

XXVII.— The  Medical  Position  in  1823,          ...         363 

XXVIII. —Introduction  of  Vaccination  to  the  United  States,  370 

XXIX. — Introduction  of  Vaccination  to  India  and  the  East,  383 

XXX. — Diffusion  of  Vaccination  throughout  Europe,       ...  395 

XXXI. — Sweden,  Denmark  and  Iceland,       ...         ...         ..  408 

XXXII. — Newcastle  Smallpox :  a  Common  Story,    ...         ...  424 

XXXIII.— The  Norwich  Epidemic— 1819,                                ..  431 


CONTENTS. 


CHAP.  XXXIV. — Smallpox  Displaced  and  Replaced:  Dr.  Watt's  PAGK 

Discovery— Glasgow,  1813,     439 

XXXV.— The  National  Vaccine  Establishment— 1808-40,  ...  453 

XXXVI.— The  National  Vaccine  Establishment— 1841-50,  ...  470 

XXXVIL— Vaccination  Enforced— 1853,            477 

XXXVIII.— Universal  Compulsion  Demanded— 1855 491 

XXXIX.— John  Gibbs's  Letter— 1855, 500 

XL. — Simon's  Defence  and  Hamernik's  Judgment,        ...  510 

XLL— Compulsion  Intensified— 1861  and  1867, 52G 

XLII.—  The  Gathering  Movement,  1 867-70,            540 

XLIII. — House  of  Commons  Committee,  1871,        ...         ...  552 

XLI V.  —The  Struggle  for  Freedom, ...  573 

NOTES— Origin  of  the  Term  Vaccination, 229 

Vaccination  a  Statistical  Question,  ...         ...         ...         ...  596 

INDEX,     597 

ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Edward  Jenner  from  Statue  by  Monteverde,         ...  FRONTISPIECE. 

JohnGibbs,        ...  508 


INTRODUCTION. 


PREFATORY. 

THERE  are  few  matters  among  educated  people  upon 
which  opinion  is  so  absolute  and  so  ill-informed  as  vacci- 
nation. They  will  tell  you  it  has  stopped  smallpox  and 
does  no  harm,  and  if  you  venture  to  question  either 
assertion  you  are  set  down  as  an  abettor  of  "  those  ignor- 
ant and  fanatical  anti-vaccinators."  If  undeterred  'you 
inquire  when  smallpox  was  stopped,  and  which  is  the 
harmless  variety  of  vaccination,  you  will  probably  be 
told  that  these  are  medical  questions,  whilst  the  facts 
are  indisputable ;  the  answer  running  in  the  line  of  Old 
Kaspar's  to  Little  Peterkin,  inquisitive  as  to  the  good  of 
Blenheim — 

Why  that  I  cannot  tell,  said  he, 

But  'twas  a  famous  victory. 

I  am  not  complaining  of  this  attitude  of  mind.  We 
all  accept  more  or  less  on  bare  authority.  In  the  multi- 
plicity and  unsearchableness  of  knowledge,  it  is  unavoid- 
able. Some  years  ago  a  venerable  friend  urged  me  to 
write  against  vaccination,  which,  he  said,  was  working 
endless  mischief  to  the  public  health.  He  would  have 
the  book  published,  and  provide  whatever  was  requisite 
for  my  satisfaction.  I  pleaded  prior  engagements,  and 
turned  the  conversation,  thinking  how  sad  it  was  that 
one  so  good,  and,  in  other  respects,  so  enlightened  should 
be  subject  to  so  strange  an  illusion — I,  then,  taking 
vaccination  on  trust  as  one  of  the  numerous  blessings 
conferred  upon  mankind  in  the  course  of  the  present 
century. 

I  am  therefore  disposed  to  make  large  allowance  for 
the  credulous  attitude  of  the  public  toward  vaccination 


INTRODUCTION. 


whilst  at  the  same  time  insisting  on  its  correction ;  and 
for  this  reason  especially,  that  vaccination  is  no  longer 
a  matter  of  private  concern.  We  are  free  to  entertain 
what  notions  we  please,  but  if  we  proceed  to  enforce 
them  on  unbelievers,  we  cannot  complain  if  we  are  re- 
quired to  answer  for  our  aggression  or  encounter  rough 
usage.  Enforced  by  the  law  of  England,  vaccination  is 
related  to  the  life  and  intelligence  of  every  citizen,  and 
it  is  consequently  vain  to  claim  for  it  exemption  from 
vulgar  discussion.  Apart  from  its  compulsory  infliction, 
vaccination  might  be  and  remain -an  esoteric  rite,  the 
very  mystery  of  mysteries;  but  with  compulsion  the 
privilege  of  sanctity  is  impossible. 

VAKIOLATION. 

It  has  been  said  that  beliefs  and  observances  in  them- 
selves most  irrational  wear  a  different  aspect  when  viewed 
in  the  light  of  their  origin  and  history.  It  is  so  with 
vaccination.  Had  it  come  upon  the  world  as  we  know 
it,  with  failure  and  disaster,  equivocation  and  apology, 
rejection  would  have  been  inevitable ;  but  when  we  turn 
to  the  past  we  discover  that  our  damnosa  hcereditas  has 
a  tradition  that  goes  far  to  account  for,  if  not  to  excuse, 
the  folly  which  remains. 

Vaccination  was  the  successor  of  Inoculation  (or,  more 
precisely,  Variolation),  entering  into  a  possession  already 
acquired  in  the  human  mind. 

It  had  been  observed  from  of  old  that  some  forms  of 
disease  rarely  recur  in  the  same  person  in  a  lifetime  ;  and 
thus  when  scarlet  fever,  or  measles,  or  smallpox  broke 
out  in  a  family,  it  was  considered  prudent  to  let  the  dis- 
ease have  its  course,  and  thereby  obtain  immunity  from 
fear  of  future  infection. 

It  was  this  confidence,  that  smallpox  once  undergone 
was  finally  disposed  of,  that  was  the  justification  of  the 
practice  of  inoculating  the  disease  when  introduced  from 
the  East  in  the  first  quarter  of  last  century.  Inasmuch, 
it  was  argued,  as  none  can  have  smallpox  more  than  once, 
why  not  induce  it  artificially,  and  pass  through  the  ill- 


INTRODUCTION.  xi 


ness  at  a  convenient  season  ?  But  Nature,  though  com- 
pliant, does  not  always  accept  the  course  we  ingeniously 
prescribe  for  her.  Smallpox  as  naturally  developed  (so 
to  speak)  is  a  crisis  of  impurity  in  the  blood,  and  if  the 
requisite  conditions  are  absent,  it  cannot  be  adequately 
excited.  Hence  variolation  was  an  uncertain  and  hazard- 
ous operation.  It  took  with  some  and  was  indistinguish- 
able from  an  attack  of  ordinary  smallpox ;  it  took 
partially,  or  not  at  all  with  others ;  and  the  operation 
was  frequently  followed  by  malaise,  disorders  of  the 
skin,  and  grave  constitutional  derangements.  Nor  were 
the  variolated  secure  from  smallpox.  They  occasionally 
had  smallpox  with  their  neighbours,  and  then  it  was 
said,  "  There  must  have  been  some  mistake  about  the 
"  inoculation;  for  it  is  impossible  that  anyone  can  be  suc- 
"  cessf  ully  inoculated  and  have  smallpox."  Further,  the 
variolated,  while  labouring  under  the  induced  malady, 
conveyed  the  disease  to  their  attendants  and  visitors ; 
and  thus  smallpox  was  propagated  by  the  means  intended 
to  avert  it. 

THE  PRECURSOR  OF  VACCINATION. 

At  the  close  of  last  century,  variolation  had  become 
the  custom  of  the  upper  and  middle  classes  of  England. 
The  trouble  and  the  peril  were  disliked,  but  were  accepted 
in  the  name  of  duty.  The  variolation  of  their  children 
was  an  anxiety  that  weighed  like  lead  on  the  hearts  of 
affectionate  parents ;  and  glad  and  grateful  they  were 
when  the  operation  was  accomplished  without  serious 
mishap.  Patients  designed  for  variolation  were  dieted, 
purged,  and  bled ;  and  smallpox  from  sufferers  of  sound 
constitution  was  diligently  inquired  for.  Mild  smallpox 
was  in  great  demand  and  was  propagated  from  arm  to 
arm.  When  Dr.  Dimsdale  operated  on  the  Empress 
Catharine  he  did  not  venture  to  convey  smallpox  direct 
to  the  imperial  person.  He  looked  out  a  case  of  "  benign 
smallpox  "  with  which  he  inoculated  a  strong  young  man, 
and  from  the  young  man  the  Empress.  Unless  we  realise 
the  inconveniences,  the  uncertainties,  the  disasters  and 


INTRODUCTION. 


the  horrors  of  the  practice  of  variolation,  albeit  minimised, 
excused  and  denied  by  its  professors,  we  can  never  under- 
stand the  enthusiasm  with  which  vaccination  was  received 
as  its  substitute.  The  promise  conveyed  in  vaccination 
was  a  relief  inexpressible,  bearing  with  it  a  show  of 
reason  that  was  well  nigh  irresistible.  The  argument 
ran  thus  :  No  one  can  have  smallpox  twice,  and  the 
mildest  attack  is  as  protective  from  subsequent  attack 
as  the  severest.  Therefore  it  is  that  in  inoculation  with 
smallpox  we  find  security.  But  inoculation  with  small- 
pox is  an  uncertain  operation  with  dangerous  issues. 
Here,  however,  in  cowpox  is  discovered  a  mild  variety 
of  smallpox,  which  may  be  inoculated  with  perfect  ease, 
and  with  no  possibility  of  harm.  And  inasmuch  as  the 
mildest  smallpox  is  as  preventive  of  future  smallpox  as 
the  severest,  it  follows  that  this  gentle  cowpox  must 
serve  as  a  full  equivalent  for  smallpox  itself. 

IMMEDIATE  TRIUMPH   OF  VACCINATION. 

It  was  in  this  plausible  shape  that  vaccination  had  an 
immediate  triumph.  The  way  was  made  straight  for  it 
and  every  difficulty  removed  by  the  existing  practice  of 
variolation.  Dr.  W.  B.  Carpenter  says  that  vaccination 
was  more  strenuously  resisted  at  the  beginning  of  the 
century  than  it  is  at  this  day.  He  is  completely  mis- 
taken. Vaccination  came  upon  a  generation  prepared 
for  it — which  saw  in  it  a  prescription  in  full  accord  with 
common-sense.  The  entire  medical  profession,  with  a 
few  exceptions,  the  King,  Queen  and  court,  were 
converted  straight  off,  and  parliament  and  society  fol- 
lowed suit.  It  was,  I  confess,  a  natural  development  of 
opinion ;  and  we  need  have  little  doubt  that  had  we  lived 
in  those  days  we  should  have  found  ourselves  shouting 
with  the  genteel  mob.  The  limited  resistance  offered  to 
vaccination  was  not  based  on  physiological  or  sanitary 
science :  such  science  did  not  then  exist.  It  was  the 
resistance  of  variolators  who  were  satisfied  with  the 
established  practice  and  resented  its  disturbance ;  profess- 
ing at  the  same  time  immeasurable  horror  at  the  pro- 


INTRODUCTION.  xm 


fanation  to  humanity  by  infection  with  bovine  disease. 
Whilst  we  have  no  reason  to  identify  ourselves  with  that 
resistance,  we  have  to  recognise  the  service  rendered  by 
the  variolators  in  observing  the  results  of  vaccination — 
the  persistency  wTith  which  they  traced  and  exposed  its 
failure  to  prevent  smallpox  and  the  injuries  and  deaths 
it  caused.  So  far  as  the  maintenance  of  variolous  inocu- 
lation was  concerned,  they  fought  a  losing  battle ;  but 
they  drove  the  vaccinators  from  post  to  post  (cursed 
while  they  did  so  as  malignant  false  witnesses  possessed 
of  the  devil)  and  at  last  compelled  the  admission  that 
their  infallible  preventive  could  not  be  guaranteed  to 
prevent,  but  only  to  make  smallpox  milder — a  safe  asser- 
tion because  unverifiable,  as  disputable  as  indisputable 
in  particular  instances. 

JENNER'S  PROCEDURE. 

About  the  matter  of  this  prophylactic  there  was  from 
the  first  a  curious  confusion  which  continues  to  this  day. 

Jenner  was  a  country  doctor  at  Berkeley  in  Glouces- 
tershire, a  dairy  country,  where  the  maids  believed  that 
if  they  caught  cowpox  in  milking  they  could  never  after- 
wards catch  smallpox.  Jenner  when  a  young  man  was 
inclined  to  accept  the  dairymaids'  faith;  but  when  he 
discussed  it  with  his  medical  acquaintance,  they  ridiculed 
him.  They  said,  "  We  know  that  such  is  the  dairymaids' 
"  faith,  but  we  also  know  that  it  is  untrue;  for  we  know 
"  dairymaids  who  have  had  cowpox,  and  afterwards  had 
"  smallpox  notwithstanding  their  cowpox."  Jenner  was 
convinced  and  said  no  more  about  cowpox. 

To  this  point  let  me  draw  special  attention.  No  man 
knew  better  than  Jenner  that  cowpox  as  cowpox  was  no 
preventive  of  smallpox. 

Toward  middle-life  he  had  what  he  conceived  to  be  a 
happy  thought.  Cowpox  as  cowpox  he  had  dismissed  as 
impracticable ;  but  there  was  a  variety  of  cowpox  which 
he  resolved  to  recommend. 

Cows  in  Gloucestershire  were  milked  by  men  as  well 
as  by  women  ;  and  men  would  sometimes  milk  cows  with 


INTRODUCTION. 


hands  foul  from  dressing  the  heels  of  horses  afflicted  with 
with  what  was  called  grease.  With  this  grease  they  in- 
fected the  cows,  and  the  pox  which  followed  was  pro- 
nounced by  Jenner  to  have  all  the  virtue  against  smallpox 
which  the  dairymaids  claimed  for  cowrpox. 

HORSEGREASE  COWPOX. 

According  to  Jenner,  then,  the  dairymaids  were  right, 
and  they  were  wrong.  They  were  right  when  the  pox 
they  caught  was  derived  from  the  horse  through  the  cow  ; 
they  were  wrong  when  the  pox  they  caught  originated  on 
the  cow  without  the  horse.  He  thus  discriminated  a 
double  pox — cowpox  of  no  efficacy  against  smallpox,  and 
horsegrease  cowpox  of  sure  efficacy. 

Further,  in  this  connection,  it  is  to  be  observed,  that 
farriers  believed  that  when  they  got  poisoned  in  hand- 
ling horses  with  greasy  heels,  they  too,  like  the  dairy- 
maids, were  safe  from  smallpox. 

It  is  not  therefore  for  cowpox,  but  for  horsegrease 
cowpox  that  Jenner  is  answerable.  In  cowpox  he  had 
not,  and  could  have  no  faith. 

In  1798  Jenner  published  his  famous  Inquiry,  a 
treatise  much  more  spoken  of  than  read,  wherein  he  dis- 
tinctly set  forth  the  origin  of  his  chosen  prophylactic.  It 
was  not,  I  repeat,  cowpox :  it  was  horsegrease  cowpox. 
He  carefully  discriminated  it  from  spontaneous  cowpox, 
which,  he  said,  had  no  protective  virtue,  being  attended 
with  no  inflammation  and  erysipelas,  the  essential  se- 
quences of  inoculation  with  effective  virus. 

REJECTION   OF  JENNER'S  PRESCRIPTION. 

I  have  said  that  the  world  gave  a  cordial  and  unhesi- 
tating welcome  to  Jenner's  revelation,  but  the  observa- 
tion requires  a  startling  qualification.  Jenner's  revelation 
as  conveyed  in  his  Inquiry  was  summarily  and  ignomi- 
niously  rejected — was  absolutely  rejected.  I  wish  to 
emphasise  this  point.  Jenner  published  his  Inquiry  in 
order  to  recommend  horsegrease  cowpox,  and  what  I 
have  to  say  is,  that  the  public  declined  to  have  anything 


INTRODUCTION. 


to  do  with  horsegrease  cowpox.  The  origin  of  cowpox 
in  horsegrease  was  scouted  as  an  intolerable  origin.  It 
was  disgusting.  Why  a  diseased  secretion  from  horses' 
heels  should  be  more  repulsive  than  a  similar  secretion 
from  cows'  teats  was  not  explained ;  but,  as  we  all  know, 
there  is  no  accounting  for  tastes.  Various  attempts  were 
made  to  verify  Jenner's  prescription  by  inoculating  cows 
with  horsegrease,  but  they  ended  in  failure — fortunately, 
it  was  said,  in  failure  ;  for  as  Dr.  Pearson  (chief  among 
primitive  vaccinators)  observed,  "  The  very  name  of 
"  horsegrease  was  like  to  have  damned  the  whole  thing." 
What  did  Jenner  do  under  these  circumstances  ?  Did 
he  confront  the  public  and  assert  the  efficacy  of  horse- 
grease  cowpox  ?  Not  he.  He  wanted  money.  He  saw 
how  the  wind  was  blowing.  He  said  not  another  word 
about  horsegrease  cowpox ;  and  as  the  public  were  eager 
at  any  price  to  escape  from  the  nuisance  of  smallpox 
inoculation,  and  disposed  to  substitute  cowpox  as  a  harm- 
less substitute,  why  then  he  resolved  to  go  in  for  cowpox, 
and  pose  as  its  discoverer  and  promoter. 

JENNER'S  TRANSFORMATION. 

I  am  not  making  what  is  called  a  constructive  charge 
against  Jenner,  but  simply  setting  forth  plain,  undeniable 
matter-of-fact.  I  ask  any  one  in  doubt  as  to  what  I 
say  to  read  Jenner's  Inquiry,  published  in  1798,  the 
prescription  of  which  is  horsegrease  cowpox,  and  the 
condemnation  of  cowpox.  Turn  then  to  his  petition  for 
largess,  addressed  to  the  House  of  Commons  in  1802,  and 
what  do  we  find  ?  Not  one  word  about  horsegrease  cow- 
pox,  but  this  audacious  assertion : — 

"  That  your  Petitioner  has  discovered  that  a  disease 
"  which  occasionally  exists  in  a  particular  form  among 
"  cattle,  known  by  name  of  Cowpox,  admits  of  being  in- 
"  oculated  on  the  human  frame  with  the  most  perfect  ease 
"  and  safety,  and  is  attended  with  the  singularly  beneficial 
"  effect  of  rendering  through  life  the  person  so  inoculated 
"  perfectly  secure  from  the  infection  of  Smallpox." 

Why,  that  was  not  Jenner's  discovery !     It  was  the 


xvi  INTRODUCTION. 


notion  of  the  dairymaids,  and,  so  far  as  concerned  spon- 
taneous cowpox,  was  known  by  Jenner  to  be  untrue. 
Yet,  strange  to  say,  the  claim  was  in  a  measure  allowed 
by  the  House  of  Commons,  and  £10.000  awarded  to  the 
imposter,  and  subsequently  £20,000  in  1807. 

HORSEGREASE   COWPOX   KEPT   OUT   OF   SIGHT. 

As  evidence  of  how  completely  Jenner's  prescription 
of  horsegrease  cowpox  was  put  out  of  sight,  I  may  refer 
to  the  treatise  of  Dr.  Willan  On  Vaccine  Inoculation, 
published  in  1806,  wherein  all  that  was  thought  important 
concerning  the  new  practice  was  set  forth  ;  and  although 
Jenner  was  freely  cited,  yet  neither  horsegrease  nor 
horsegrease  cowpox  was  referred  to  from  the  first  page 
to  the  last.  Instead,  cowpox,  after  the  fancy  of  the 
dairymaids,  was  exalted  as  the  true  prophylactic,  appa- 
rently without  a  suspicion  of  its  questionable  character. 

As  I  have  said,  Jenner  not  only  offered  no  resistance 
to  this  amazing  transformation,  but  conformed  to  it,  and 
assumed  the  issue  as  his  own.  Since  the  public  preferred 
cowpox  to  horsegrease  cowpox,  he  saw  no  reason  why  he 
should  object,  especially  as  the  same  foolish  public  lusted 
after  some  one  to  worship  for  their  deliverance  from  the 
plague  of  variolation.  The  world  resounded  with  praises 
of  the  immortal  Jenner,  the  saviour  of  mankind  from 
smallpox.  Enveloped  in  the  smoke  of  such  incense,  it 
is  scarcely  surprising  that  the  idol  came  to  believe  that 
his  worshippers  knew  him  better  than  he  did  himself. 

SPURIOUS   COWPOX. 

The  promise  of  vaccination,  its  absolute  security  and 
harmlessness,  was  speedily  belied.  The  vaccinated  caught 
smallpox;  they  fell  sick  after  the  operation;  they  were 
afflicted  with  eruptions  and  swellings  ;  they  died.  These 
mishaps  were  at  first  denied — stoutly  denied  ;  and  when 
denial  was  no  longer  possible,  it  was  attempted  to 
explain  them  away.  The  cowpox  used  could  not  have 
been  genuine  cowpox,  but  spurious;  and  for  awhile 
spurious  cowpox  did  yeoman's  service  in  the  way  of 


INTRODUCTION.  xvii 


apology ;  but  by-and-by  the  excuse  began  to  work  more 
harm  than  good.  Mishaps  were  so  numerous  that  people 
became  afraid  of  this  omnipresent  spurious  cowpox,  and 
to  ask  what  it  was,  and  how  it  could  be  avoided.  How 
can  there  be  spurious  pox  ?  Whoever  heard  of  spurious 
disease  ?  Milkmen  vend  spurious  milk,  grocers  spurious 
sugar,  smashers  spurious  coin ;  but  surely  cows  are  not 
to  be  numbered  with  such  malefactors  as  producers  of 
spurious  pox !  The  thing  was  absurd  on  its  face,  and 
absurd  it  proved.  When  Jenner  was  under  examination 
by  a  committee  of  the  College  of  Physicians  in  1806,  he 
was  pressed  hard  for  a  definition  of  spurious  cowpox, 
when  he  "  owned  up."  He  knew  nothing  of  spurious 
cowpox.  The  words  had  been  employed,  not  to  describe 
any  irregularity  on  the  part  of  the  cow,  but  certain 
irregularities  in  the  action  of  cowpox  on  the  part  of  the 
vaccinated  :  which  was  to  say  that  when  the  vaccinated 
recovered  creditably  and  did  not  catch  smallpox,  the 
cowpox  was  genuine;  but  when  the  sequences  were 
otherwise,  why  then  it  was  spurious !  Ingenious  and 
convenient,  was  it  not  ? 

HORSE  VIRUS   VINDICATED. 

Reverting  to  Jenner 's  suppression  of  the  origin  of  cow- 
pox  in  horsegrease,  it  may  be  suggested  that  he  had 
changed  his  mind :  but  he  had  not  changed  his  mind. 
As  observed,  various  attempts  were  made  to  inoculate 
cows  with  horsegrease,  and  that  these  attempts  were 
failures;  but  subsequent  attempts  were  successful. 
Tanner,  a  veterinarian,  of  Rockhampton,  Gloucestershire, 
succeeded  to  Jenner's  complete  satisfaction.  Dr.  Loy  of 
Whitby  dispensed  with  the  cow  altogether,  and  inocu- 
lated with  horsegrease,  or  horsepox,  producing  vesicles 
identical  with  those  of  cowpox.  The  great  success,  how- 
ever, in  this  line  was  reserved  for  Sacco  of  Milan. 
From  the  hand  of  a  coachman  poisoned  with  horsegrease 
he  inoculated  nine  children,  and  from  the  virus  thus 
engendered  operated  on  every  side.  Writing  to  Jenner 
in  1803,  Sacco  said — "It  is  now  admitted  and  settled 
b 


xviii  INTRODUCTION. 


"  that  grease  is  the  cause  of  vaccine,  and  we  cannot  too 
"  soon  alter  the  designation  to  equine."  De  Carro  of 
Vienna  received  this  equine  from  Sacco,  and  used  it  so 
freely  and  successfully  among  the  Viennese,  that,  in  his 
own  words,  it  became  impossible  to  say  which  of  the 
citizens  were  equinated  and  which  vaccinated. 

What  did  Jenner  make  of  these  confirmations  ?  He 
was  adjudged  mistaken  in  asserting  that  the  cowpox 
good  against  smallpox  was  derived  from  horsegrease. 
Did  he  appeal  with  triumph  to  the  evidence  of  Sacco, 
and  say,  "  You  thought  me  wrong,  but  see,  I  was  right!" 
Not  he.  He  kept  silence.  He  consented  to  be  treated 
as  in  error.  He  stood  by  and  allowed  cowpox  to  be  used 
in  which  he  had  no  confidence  whatever.  Nay  more. 
He  consented  to  be  rewarded  and  honoured  as  the  dis- 
coverer of  a  pox  (which  he  did  not  discover)  in  which  he 
was  without  faith,  and  had  at  the  outset  of  his  career 
expressly  rejected  and  condemned.  He  recognised  that 
it  was  expedient  that  the  connection  between  horsegrease 
and  cowpox  should  be  denied.  He  had  his  bill  to  settle 
with  the  English  people,  and  it  was  not  for  him  to  make 
difficulties.  When,  however,  he  had  obtained  all  he 
could  expect  from  public  favour,  and  had  got  clear  of 
London  and  the  oppression  of  its  savants,  why  then  he 
resumed  the  expression  of  his  original  opinion;  and  still 
further,  like  Sacco  of  Milan,  he  dispensed  with  the  cow, 
and  inoculated  straight  from  the  horse.  He  supplied 
the  National  Vaccine  Establishment  with  horse  virus ; 
he  sent  it  to  Edinburgh;  he  distributed  it  among  his 
medical  acquaintances ;  he  described  it  as  "  the  true  and 
"  genuine  life-preserving  fluid."  What  more  need  I  say  ? 
Such  was  Jenner ;  such  were  his  tactics ;  and  whoever 
assumes  his  defence  will  assume  a  task  in  which  he  is 
not  to  be  envied. 

WHICH  SHALL  IT  BE? 

Jenner  died  in  1823,  and  at  that  date  three  kinds  of 
virus  were  in  use;  first,  cowpox  from  horsegrease  or 
horsepox ;  second,  cowpox ;  third,  horsepox.  These  of 


INTRODUCTION.  xix 


course  were  subject  to  inscrutable  modification  in  trans- 
mission from  arm  to  arm :  it  is  the  distinct  sources  we 
have  to  recognise.  A  patient  intent  on  vaccination 
might  have  said  to  himself,  Which  shall  it  be  ?  Shall  I 
be  cowpoxed  ?  or,  shall  I  be  horsepoxed  ?  or,  shall  I  be 
horsepoxed  cowpoxed  ?  How  such  an  inquirer  would 
have  been  answered  had  he  set  his  perplexity  before  his 
medical  adviser,  I  can  only  conjecture.  Probably  he 
would  have  been  rebuked  for  his  intrusion  into  matters 
outside  his  province.  The  little  girl  who  quenched  the 
scepticism  of  her  comrade  with  the  dictum,  "  It  is  so,  for 
"  ma  says  so ;  and  if  it  is'nt  so,  it  is  so,  if  ma  says  so," 
illustrates  the  manner  of  rebuff  administered  to  those 
who  pry  into  professional  mysteries.  It  is  for  you  to 
pay  and  for  us  to  think  is  a  formula  by  no  means  limited 
to  ecclesiastics. 


SMALLPOX  COWPOX. 

Jenner  was  pleased  to  describe  cowpox  as  a  mild  form 
of  smallpox  ;  but  for  what  reason,  outside  his  pleasure, 
he  did  not  explain.  Nevertheless  the  suggestion  has 
borne  fruit.  When  virus  has  fallen  short,  it  has  been 
asked,  Why,  if  cowpox  be  mild  smallpox,  should  not 
cows  be  inoculated  with  smallpox,  and  a  crop  of  virus  be 
raised  ?  Various  such  attempts  have  been  made,  in  which 
Mr.  Badcock  of  Brighton  has  been  especially  distin- 
guished. Mr.  John  Simon,  writing  in  1857,  said,  "Mr. 
"  Badcock,  from  184*0  to  the  present  time,  has  again  and 
"  again  derived  fresh  stocks  of  vaccine  lymph  from  cows 
"  artificially  infected  by  him  ;  having  vaccinated  with  such 
"  lymph  more  than  14,000  persons,  and  having  forwarded 
"  supplies  of  it  to  more  than  400  medical  practitioners.' 
When  it  is  remembered  that  virus  for  half  a  dozen  or 
more  vaccinations  is  taken  from  a  single  arm,  and  that 
this  process  of  reproduction  is  repeated  every  week,  some 
idea  may  be  formed  of  the  extent  to  which  this  smallpox 
cowpox  has  been  diffused  over  the  country. 

The  original  assertion  that  vaccination  conferred  life- 
long immunity  from  smallpox  was  unwillingly  abandoned 


xx  INTRODUCTION. 


under  stress  of  experience,  until  no  respectable  practi- 
tioner pretended  that  the  rite  afforded  more  than  a  partial 
or  temporary  security.  In  promotion  of  smallpox  cow- 
pox,  however,  Jenner's  most  extravagant  claims  were 
revived.  In  Mr.  Simon's  words,  for  the  recipient  of 
smallpox  cowpox,  "  Neither  renewed  vaccination,  nor 
"  inoculation  with  smallpox,  nor  the  closest  contact  and 
"  co-habitation  with  smallpox  patients,  will  occasion  him 
"  to  betray  any  remnant  of  susceptibility  to  infection." 
Untrue  even  of  variolation,  it  is  unnecessary  to  contro- 
vert such  a  figment :  it  suffices  to  place  i't  on  record. 

The  hypothesis  was,  that  smallpox  inoculated  on  the 
cow  lost  somewhat  of  its  virulence  ;  but  if  so,  why  should 
not  such  cowpox  inoculated  on  man  resume  its  virulence? 
We  are  apt  to  forget  that  the  nature  of  things  is  not 
controlled  by  our  wishes,  and  that  our  interest  in  the 
conversion  of  smallpox  into  cowpox,  and  its  maintenance 
as  cowpox,  is  no  warrant  for  fulfilment.  I  may  also 
remark  that  though  smallpox  cowpox  has  entered  so 
largely  into  currency,  there  is  no  evidence  to  what  extent 
it  has  displaced  the  preceding  issues  of  horsegrease  cow- 
pox,  cowpox  and  horsepox.  So  far  as  we  know,  they 
are  all  existent  in  the  common  blood,  indistinguishable, 
the  stronger  surviving,  the  weaker  dying  out :  nobody 
knows,  nor  can  know. 

CONDEMNATION   OF   SMALLPOX   COWPOX. 

That  smallpox  cowpox  is  in  any  sense  cowpox  is, 
however,  widely  disputed,  much  confidence  being  placed 
in  the  researches  of  the  Lyons  Commission  in  1855, 
presided  over  by  M.  Chaveau.  This  Commission,  says 
Dr.  Charles  Cameron,  "  proved  incontestably  that  small- 
"  pox  can  no  more  be  converted  into  cowpox  by  passing  it 
"  through  a  cow  than  by  stunting  an  oak  it  can  be  con- 
"  verted  into  a  gooseberry  bush."  Cowpox,  it  is  held,  is  a 
disease  of  the  cow,  with  no  relation  to  smallpox.  The 
vesicles  of  each  may  be  apparently  identical,  as  are  the 
vesicles  excited  by  the  application  of  tartar  emetic ;  but 
that  is  no  proof  of  essential  identity.  According  to  Dr. 


INTRODUCTION. 


George  Wyld,  "  Smallpox  inoculation  of  the  heifer  pro- 
"  duces  not  vaccinia,  but  a  modified  smallpox,  capable  of 
"  spreading  smallpox  among  human  beings  by  infection ; " 
and  Dr.  Cameron  boldly  attributes  the  recent  increase  of 
smallpox  to  the  use  of  smallpox  cowpox  for  vaccination. 
Nor  is  Dr.  Cameron  singular  in  this  opinion.  Some 
time  ago,  the  Galway  Guardians  ran  short  of  virus  for 
vaccination,  when  it  was  proposed  to  inoculate  a  calf 
with  smallpox.  As  soon  as  the  Local  Government  Board 
in  Dublin  became  aware  of  the  project,  it  was  forbidden. 
Why  ?  Here  is  the  deliverance  of  the  Secretary— 
"  Because  smallpox  virus  taken  from  the  calf  would 
"  communicate  that  disease  to  the  human  subject,  and  be 
"  thereby  a  fertile  source  of  propagating  the  disease ;  and 
"  would,  moreover,  render  the  operator  liable  to  prosecu- 
"  tion  under  the  Act  prohibiting  inoculation  with  small- 
"  pox."  Thus  the  virus  current  in  England,  and  credited 
with  miraculous  virtue  by  Simon,  is  denounced  as  danger- 
ous and  its  use  unlawful  in  Ireland  ! 

COWPOX   REVIVED. 

The  constant  disasters  of  vaccination,  the  certain  and 
suspected  communication  of  human  diseases  with  the 
virus  propagated  from  arm  to  arm,  have  induced  a  wide 
resort  to  cowpox  under  the  designation  of  "  animal 
"vaccination,"  in  contempt  of  the  fact  that  disease  in 
cattle  is  as  rife  as  among  men,  and  inoculable.  Still 
the  dread  of  the  invaccination  of  syphilis  is  so  intense, 
and  so  justifiable,  that  other  risks  are  encountered  if  that 
may  be  avoided. 

This  cowpox  is  commended  as  "  pure  lymph  from  the 
calf,"  a  sweet  periphrase  with  a  savour  of  Daphne  and 
Chloe,  of  Flora  and  the  country  green — a  periphrase 
used  in  craft  or  ignorance,  "  pure  lymph  "  being  as  in- 
capable of  producing  vaccinia  as  pure  milk  or  pure 
saliva.  The  prescription  takes  us  back  to  Jenner's  time 
and  Jenner's  procedure.  As  has  been  said,  the  Glouces- 
tershire dairymaids  believed  that  after  cowpox  they  were 
safe  from  smallpox,  and  that  Jenner  was  much  impressed 


INTRODUCTION. 


with  their  belief  until  he  discovered  that  it  was  untrue. 
Had  he  found  it  true,  he  might  have  advertised  the 
prophylactic  thirty  years  in  advance  of  the  publication 
of  his  Inquiry ;  but  if  anything  was  certain,  this  was 
certain,  that  cowpox  did  not  avert  smallpox.  Satisfied 
that  cowpox  per  se  was  of  no  avail  against  smallpox,  he 
defined  a  variety  of  cowpox  generated  by  the  applica- 
tion of  horsegrease,  to  which  he  was  pleased  to  ascribe 
sovereign  efficacy.  Why,  I  ask,  did  he  discriminate  and 
prescribe  that  variety  of  cowpox  if  cowpox  per  se  was 
effective  ?  The  question  answers  itself.  I  will  not  say 
the  cowpoxers  treat  Jenner's  evidence  with  disrespect ; 
for  such  is  their  ignorance,  that  I  question  if  they  are 
aware  of  its  existence;  moreover,  that  which  is  undesirable 
to  know,  is  instinctively  avoided  and  kept  out  of  sight. 
They  recommend  their  "lymph"  as  wonderfully  mild, 
being  attended  with  no  erysipelas,  the  pest  of  arm-to-arm 
vaccination  —  a  description  that  tallies  exactly  with 
Jenner's  of  impotent  cowpox.  "The  pustules,"  says 
Jenner,  "are  of  a  much  milder  nature"  than  those  of 
horsegrease  cowpox.  "  No  erysipelas  attends  them,  and 
"  they  are  incapable  of  producing  any  specific  effect  on 
"  the  human  constitution." 

A  COWPOX  CHARLATAN. 

Yet,  incredible  as  it  may  appear,  it  is  with  the 
praise  of  this  impotent  cowpox,  attended  with  no 
erysipelas,  that  the  public  have  been  deafened,  and  for 
which  the  most  extravagant  assertions  are  made.  Dr. 
Martin,  one  of  the  chief  producers  and  vendors  of  the 
article,  appeared  at  the  British  Medical  Association  in 
1881,  saying,  "  I  am  called  upon  at  times,  at  the  very 
"  shortest  notice,  to  vaccinate  whole  cities ;  and  when  I 
"  left  America,  I  had  just  completed  the  vaccination  of 
"  the  city  of  New  Haven.  The  custom  is  to  send  for  me, 
"  or  my  son,  wherever  smallpox  breaks  out,  with  orders 
"  to  vaccinate  at  once  the  entire  population  of  the  city, 
"  town,  or  neighbourhood.  It  is  done  immediately,  the 


INTRODUCTION.  xxiii 


"  result  being  that  an  epidemic  is  completely  stopped  in 
"  a  week." 

Thus  spoke  the  charlatan,  with  the  acquiescence  of  the 
medical  assembly.  When  churchmen  deplore  the  scepti- 
cism of  the  age,  and  the  decay  of  faith,  it  is  to  be  observed 
that  the  habit  of  mind  is  limited  to  certain  modes  of 
opinion,  and  that  in  general  we  are  as  credulous  as  ever. 
Human  nature  in  its  structure  is  curiously  immutable. 
Wherein  is  the  advantage  to  disbelieve  in  witchcraft  and 
to  believe  that  epidemics  of  smallpox  can  be  stopped 
with  cowpox  ? 

A  DECOROUS  UNANIMITY. 

Such  are  the  leading  varieties  of  virus  used  for  vac- 
cination— starting  with  Jenner's  horsegrease  cowpox, 
then  cowpox,  then  horsepox,  then  smallpox  cowpox,  and 
finishing  with  cowpox  revived;  each  of  them  in- 
scrutably modified  in  transit  from  child  to  child  and 
from  beast  to  beast.  We  are  continually  hearing  of 
miracles  wrought  by  vaccination  in  the  past  and  present 
— especially  the  past,  at  home  and  abroad — especially 
abroad,  the  assumption  being  that  vaccination  is,  and 
has  been,  everywhere  the  same.  On  the  contrary,  the 
condition  precedent  to  serious  consideration  of  any  vac- 
cine miracle  is  a  definition  of  the  variety  of  vaccination 
practised.  It  is,  we  admit,  convenient  for  the  adminis- 
trators of  the  rite  that  it  should  pass  for  uniform,  how- 
ever multiform ;  for  the  practice  has  become  a  great  and 
lucrative  business — a  world-wide  poll-tax ;  and  whatever 
the  internal  differences  of  the  priesthood,  it  is  their 
obvious  interest  to  exhibit  a  decorous  unanimity  in 
presence  of  their  customers.  Hence  the  uneasiness 
recently  excited  by  indiscreet  advocates  of  "  pure  lymph 
"from  the  calf"  has  been  judiciously  allayed,  not  by 
resistance,  but  by  concession  and  damnation  with  faint 
praise ;  the  commercial  instinct  dictating  caution,  for  if 
the  public  did  get  behind  the  professional  screen,  and 
discovered  the  mysteries  of  pox,  what  might  not  befall 
the  craft  of  vaccination  ! 


xxiv  INTRODUCTION. 


JENNER  S   SUCCESSIVE  DISCLAIMERS. 

The  story  of  vaccination  is  a  story  of  failures,  and  as 
each  failure  has  become  manifest,  it  has  been  more  or 
less  artfully  apologised  for. 

Much  is  given  to  assurance.  People  like  infallible 
prescriptions.  They  prefer  an  unequivocal  lie  to  an 
equivocal  answer.  This  adventurers  understand,  and 
discourse  accordingly.  Hence  when  Jenner  solicited 
Parliament  for  largess,  he  did  so  in  no  doubtful  terms. 
He  boldly  declared  that  cowpox  was  "  inoculated  on  the 
"  human  frame  with  the  most  perfect  ease  and  safety," 
and  was  "  attended  with  the  singularly  beneficial  effect 
"  of  rendering  through  life  the  person  so  inoculated  per- 
"  f ectly  secure  from  the  infection  of  smallpox."  Again  he 
said,  "  The  human  frame,  when  once  it  has  felt  the  in- 
"  fluence  of  genuine  cowpox,  is  never  afterwards,  at  any 
"  period  of  its  existence,  assailable  by  smallpox." 

It  is  needless  to  point  out  that  Jenner  was  without 
warrant  for  his  assertions.  His  experience  did  not  cover 
more  than  a  few  years ;  and  he  could  not,  therefore, 
know  that  his  specific  would  secure  its  subjects  from 
smallpox  for  life.  He  believed,  or  affected  to  believe, 
his  own  assurance,  and  assurance  being  infectious,  it 
widely  spread.  The  inoculation  of  cowpox  became 
fashionable  among  busybodies,  male  and  female.  Ladies 
especially  were  numbered  among  Jenner's  favourites  and 
experts,  operating,  as  he  described,  "  with  a  light  hand." 
Cobbett  relates,  "  Gentlemen  and  ladies  made  the  beastly 
"  commodity  a  pocket  companion ;  and  if  a  cottager's  child 
"  were  seen  by  them  on  a  common  (in  Hampshire  at  least), 
"  and  did  not  quickly  take  to  its  heels,  it  was  certain  to 
"  carry  off  more  or  less  of  the  disease  of  the  cow." 

It  so  happened  that  prior  to  the  introduction  of  vac- 
cination, a  marked  decline  in  the  prevalence  of  smallpox 
had  set  in,  and  for  the  continuance  of  this  decline  the 
vaccinators  took  credit.  "  See,"  they  cried,  "  see  what 
"  we  are  doing ! "  But  they  failed  to  observe  that  the 
decline  prevailed  among  millions  wrho  did  not  participate 


INTRODUCTION.  *xv 


in  the  cowpox  salvation.  Soon,  however,  cases  of  small- 
pox among  the  vaccinated  began  to  be  reported.  At 
first  they  were  denied.  They  were  impossible.  When 
the  evidence  became  too  strong  for  contradiction,  it  was 
said,  "There  must  have  been  some  mistake  about  the 
"  vaccination;  for  it  is  incredible  that  any  one  can  be  pro- 
"  perly  vaccinated  and  have  smallpox :  the  human  frame, 
"when  once  it  has  felt  the  influence  of  genuine  cowpox, 
"  is  never  afterwards,  at  any  period  of  its  existence  assail  - 
"  able  by  smallpox."  Either  some  carelessness  on  the  part 
of  the  vaccinator,  or  some  defect  in  the  cowpox  served 
for  a  while  to  reassure  the  faithful ;  but  ultimately  these 
reassurances  utterly  broke  down.  Persons  vaccinated  by 
Jenner  himself  caught  smallpox  and  died  of  smallpox. 
Then  said  Jenner,  "  I  never  pretended  that  vaccination 
"  was  more  than  equivalent  to  an  attack  of  smallpox, 
"and  smallpox  after  smallpox  is  far  from  being  a  rare 
"  phenomenon ;  indeed,  there  are  hundreds  of  cases  on 
"  record,  and  inquiry  is  continually  bringing  fresh  ones 
"  to  light."  True ;  very  true ;  but  what  then  of  the 
assurance  and  prediction  under  which  £30,000  of  the 
people's  money  had  been  pocketed — "  The  human  frame, 
"  when  once  it  has  felt  the  influence  of  genuine  cowpox,  is 
"  never  afterwards,  at  any  period  of  its  existence,  assail- 
"able  by  smallpox"?  Nay,  more;  Jenner  descended 
even  lower.  He  not  only  likened  vaccination  to  small- 
pox, but  to  variolation,  that  is  to  the  former  practice  of 
inoculation  with  smallpox ;  and  as,  he  said,  variolation 
was  well  known  to  be  no  sure  defence  against  smallpox, 
why  should  people  be  offended  when  smallpox  in  like 
manner  occasionally  followed  vaccination  ?  Why,  indeed ! 
but  then  the  promise  ran — "The  human  frame  when 
"  once  it  has  felt  the  influence  of  genuine  cowpox,  is  never 
"  afterwards,  at  any  period  of  its  existence,  assailable  by 
"smallpox."  In  a  letter  to  his  friend  Moore  in  1810, 
Jenner  said,  "  Cases  of  smallpox  after  inoculation  are 
"  innumerable."  And  again,  "  Thousands  might  be  col- 
"  lected  ;  for  every  parish  in  the  kingdom  can  give  its 
"  case."  And  he  asked  another  correspondent,  Dunning, 


INTRODUCTION. 


in  1805,  "  Is  it  possible  that  any  one  can  be  so  absurd  as 
"  to  argue  on  the  impossibility  of  smallpox  after  vaccina- 
"  tion ! "  And  this  from  Jenner,  who  had  deceived  the 
nation  in  1802  with  the  assurance  that,  "  inoculated  cow- 
"  pox  was  attended  with  the  singularly  beneficial  effect 
"  of  rendering  through  life  the  person  so  inoculated  per- 
"  f ectly  secure  from  the  infection  of  smallpox  "  ! 

Such  was  Jenner ;  such  his  inconsistency ;  and  such 
the  admissions  he  was  driven  to  make  under  stress  of 
failures  many  and  manifest. 

SMALLPOX  MADE  MILDER. 

As  vaccination  failed  to  afford  the  protection  originally 
guaranteed,  various  explanations  were  devised  to  enable 
those  who  had  talked  too  loftily  to  eat  humble  pie  with- 
out painful  observation.  One  of  the  commonest  excuses 
was  that  if  vaccination  did  not  prevent  smallpox  it  made 
it  milder ;  and  inasmuch  as  no  one  knew,  or  could  know, 
how  severe  any  attack  of  smallpox  would  have  been  with- 
out vaccination,  it  was  an  assertion  as  indisputable  as  the 
reverse — namely,  that  vaccination  not  only  made  small- 
pox severer,  but  frequently  induced  the  disease.  There 
are  many  assertions  with  which  there  is  no  reckoning, 
for  it  would  require  omniscience  to  check  them.  Let  us 
beware  of  such  assertions.  Let  us  neither  make  them, 
nor  suffer  ourselves  to  be  imposed  upon  by  them. 

PUNCTURES,  ONE  OR  SEVERAL. 

Another  excuse  was  advanced  in  the  report  of  the 
National  Vaccine  Establishment  in  1814.  It  was  said 
the  failures  in  vaccination  appeared  to  result  from  the 
practice  of  making  only  one  puncture  for  the  insertion 
of  virus.  One  puncture  ineffective !  Why,  if  one  punc- 
ture were  ineffective,  how  were  the  early  miracles  of 
vaccination  to  be  accounted  for,  all  of  which  had  been 
effected  by  means  of  single  punctures  ? 

MR.  RIGBY'S  PROTEST. 

There  was  in  those  days  a  surgeon  of  eminence  in  Nor- 
wich, Edward  Rigby,  and  he  at  once  entered  his  protest 


INTRODUCTION.  xxvii 


against  the  novel  doctrine.  Writing  to  the  Medical  and 
Physical  Journal  of  August,  1814,  he  said,  "No  physio- 
"  logical  reason  is  assigned  for  this,  and  I  believe  it 
"  would  be  difficult  to  prove  that  a  single  perfect  vesicle, 
"  which  goes  through  the  usual  stages  and  exhibits  the 
'  characteristic  appearances  of  this  singular  disease,  can 
'  be  less  the  effect  of  a  constitutional  affection  than  any 
'  given  number  would  be.  .  .  It  cannot  surely  be  doubted 
'  that  a  single  perfect  vesicle  affords  as  complete  security 
'  against  Variola  as  any  indefinite  number ;  and,  if  so, 
"there  would  seem  to  be  an  obvious  objection  to  un- 
"  necessarily  multiplying  the  vesicles,  which  in  all  cases 
"go  through  a  high  degree  of  inflammation,  are  often 
"  attended  with  painful  tumefaction  and  even  suppura- 
"  tion  in  the  axilla,  and,  if  exposed  in  the  later  stages 
"  to  any  act  of  violence,  are  apt  to  assume  a  very  dis- 
"  agreeable  ulceration,  more  especially  as  young  children, 
"  now  the  principal  subjects  of  vaccination,  are  most 
"  liable  to  suffer  in  this  way."  Rigby  had  the  better 
side  of  the  argument.  As  he  observed,  no  physiological 
reason  was  assigned  for  the  recommendation  of  plural 
punctures ;  nor  was  any  such  reason  ever  assigned.  It 
is  the  rationale  of  vaccination  that  a  virus  is  injected 
into  the  system  which  begets  a  fever  equivalent  to  an 
attack  of  smallpox ;  and  as  smallpox  rarely  recurs  in  a 
lifetime,  it  is  hoped  that  Nature  may  graciously  recog- 
nise the  substitute  for  the  reality.  Organic  poisons  such 
as  vaccine  operate  like  fire  or  ferment.  Quantity  is  of 
no  account.  So  that  the  fever  be  kindled,  excess  is 
waste.  A  scratch  at  a  dissection  is  as  deadly  as  a  gash. 
One  bite  of  a  mad  dog  is  as  likely  to  beget  hydrophobia 
as  a  dozen.  The  sting  of  a  cobra  may  be  almost 
invisible,  but  the  puncture  is  enough  for  death.  Sir 
Jarnes  Paget  says  of  vaccine  virus  that  "  inserted  once, 
"  in  almost  infinitely  small  quantity,  yet  by  multiplying 
"  itself,  or  otherwise  affecting  all  the  blood,  it  alters  it 
"  once  for  all." 

Such  is  the  rationale  of  vaccination,  and  if  I  were  a 
vaccinator,  I  should  hold  the  position  assumed  by  Rigby, 


xxviii  INTRODUCTION. 


and  maintain  that  one  puncture  is  as  effective  as  a  dozen, 
inasmuch  as  with  one  it  is  possible  to  excite  that  fever 
which  is  the  essential  of  vaccination  ;  adding,  in  Eigby's 
words,  that  as  one  puncture  is  in  all  cases  attended  with 
a  high  degree  of  inflammation,  and  often  with  painful 
tumefaction,  and  even  suppuration  in  the  arm-pits,  which 
in  case  of  violence  are  apt  to  pass  into  very  disagreeable 
ulceration,  especially  in  young  children,  it  is  most  un- 
desirable to  increase  the  number  of  such  dangerous 
wounds. 

ME.  (MARKS)  MARSON. 

I  do  not  know  that  the  condemnation  of  single  punc- 
tures at  that  time,  seventy  years  ago,  had  much  effect. 
Two  punctures  became  common,  chiefly  to  guard  against 
the  possible  failure  of  one.  It  is  of  late  years  that  the 
resort  to  many  punctures  has  become  fashionable.  Mr. 
Robert  Lowe,  now  Lord  Sherbrooke,  in  the  House  of 
Commons  in  1861  spoke  of  "the  beautiful  discovery  winch 
"  had  been  made,  that  the  security  of  vaccination  may  be 
"  almost  indefinitely  increased  by  multiplying  the  num- 
"  ber  of  punctures"  !  The  chief  author  of  this  remark- 
able discovery  was  Mr.  Marson,  for  many  years  surgeon 
of  the  Smallpox  Hospital  at  Highgate.  He  estimated 
,the  efficacy  of  vaccination  by  marks,  and  made  so  much 
of  marks  that  I  usually  think  of  him  as  Marks  Marson. 
He  said — "  A  good  vaccination  is  when  persons  have  been 
"vaccinated  in  four  or  more  places  leaving  good  cica- 
"  trices.  I  define  a  good  cicatrix  in  this  way :  a  good 
"  vaccine  cicatrix  may  be  described  as  distinct,  f oveated, 
"  dotted,  or  indented,  in  some  instances  radiated,  and  hav- 
"  ing  a  well,  or  tolerably  well,  defined  edge.  An  indifferent 
"  cicatrix  is  indistinct,  smooth,  without  indentation,  and 
"  with  an  irregular  or  ill-defined  edge.  When  I  find  that 
"  a  person  has  been  vaccinated  in  at  least  four  places, 
'"  leaving  good  marks  of  the  kind  which  I  have  described, 
"  that  person  invariably,  or  almost  invariably,  has  small- 
"  pox  in  a  very  mild  form." 

Reading  a  statement  like  this,  we  revert  to  the  ration- 


INTRODUCTION.  xxix 


ale  of  vaccination,  and  ask  what  can  marks  have  to  do 
with  its  efficacy  ?  Remember,  Marson  offered  no  explan- 
ation of  his  statement.  He  was  satisfied  to  say  thus  and 
thus  have  I  observed,  and  you  may  take  my  word  for  it. 
But  in  science  we  take  no  man's  word.  We  must  see,  or, 
like  Trelawney's  Cornishmen,  we  must  know  the  reason 
why.  Marson  appeared  before  the  House  of  Commons' 
Vaccination  Committee  in  1871,  and  set  forth  his  marks 
doctrine  with  all  the  qualifications  and  inconsistencies 
which  characterise  the  victim  of  a  fad  in  contact  with 
facts  which  his  fad  fails  to  include  or  account  for. 

MR.  WHEELER'S  RESEARCHES. 

Fatal  cases  of  smallpox  are  confluent  cases,  and  in  con- 
fluent cases  vaccination  marks  rarely  show  up  so  as  to 
answer  to  Marson's  description  of  marks  distinct,  fove- 
ated,  dotted,  or  indented,  with  a  well,  or  tolerably  well- 
defined  edge.  And  in  this  matter  our  acute  and  indus- 
trious friend,  Mr.  Alexander  Wheeler,  has  explored  the 
records  of  the  the  Smallpox  Hospitals,  and  proved  that 
vaccination  marks  many  or  vaccination  marks  few  have 
no  influence  whatever  on  the  character  or  issue  of  small- 
pox. As  Mr.  Wheeler  shows,  the  classification  of  small- 
pox into  discrete  and  confluent  is  the  only  clue  to  the 
right  estimation  of  the  fatality  of  the  disease.  Smallpox 
in  the  discrete  form,  that  is,  when  the  pustules  are  dis- 
tinct and  separate,  is  not  dangerous  when  uncomplicated 
with  other  disease,  the  overwhelming  majority  of  patients 
recovering,  vaccinated  or  unvaccinated.  The  contest 
between  life  and  death  is  waged  among  the  confluent 
cases,  where  the  pustules  are  so  close  that  they  run 
together ;  and  it  is  on  these  confluent  cases,  and  the  con- 
ditions and  antecedents  of  the  sufferers,  that  attention 
should  be  concentrated.  There  is  a  third  form  of  small- 
pox, the  malignant,  chiefly  confined  to  persons  of  irregular 
life,  which  is  almost  invariably  fatal,  and,  as  vaccinators 
themselves  allow,  vaccination  in  malignant  smallpox 
affords  no  6dds  to  its  victims. 


xxx  INTRODUCTION. 


MR.  ROBINSON'S  OPINION. 

Nevertheless,  as  Mr.  Enoch  Robinson  has  pointed  out, 
there  is  something  to  be  said  for  what  Marson  called 
good  vaccination  marks.  The  bit  of  reality  that  consti- 
tutes the  basis  of  the  marks  illusion  is  this,  that  a  well- 
formed  vaccine  cicatrix  represents  a  strong  vitality  with 
vigorous  healing  power;  whilst  an  ill-formed  cicatrix 
represents  a  contrary  habit  of  body ;  and,  pari  passu, 
those  who  heal  well  under  vaccination  stand  likely  to 
make  the  best  recoveries  in  the  event  of  smallpox.  Good 
marks  are  simply  notes  of  good  constitutions,  and  the 
rest  follows.  Aught  beyond  is  mere  medical  rubbish,  on 
a  par  with  faith  in  omens  and  divination  in  tea-cups. 

CRUELTY  OF  MARKING. 

Vaccination,  in  whatever  form,  is  bad,  but  this  faith  in 
marks  aggravates  its  cruelty.  Mr.  Claremont,  vaccinator 
for  St.  Pancras,  operates  on  infants  by  the  thousand,  and 
inflicts  on  each  four  marks.  At  a  recent  inquest  on  an 
infant,  the  victim  of  his  handiwork,  I  heard  him  say, 
"  The  mothers  nearly  always  protest."  Of  course  they 
do.  What  kind  of  mothers  would  they  be  if  they  did 
not  protest !  Apart  from  the  venorn,  the  shock  to  an 
infant's  life  from  such  wounds  is  very  serious.  Mr. 
Young  was  called  the  other  day  to  see  a  dying  infant 
vaccinated  by  this  Claremont.  Previous  to  vaccination 
it  was  perfectly  healthy,  but  never  afterwards.  From 
the  time  of  the  operation  it  fell  under  a  blight.  "  In  its 
"  coffin,"  said  Mr.  Young,  "  it  lay  like  a  child's  doll — the 
"  poor  babe  had  wasted  away.3' 

I  was  glad  to  see  in  the  Times  about  a  year  ago  a  letter 
from  Dr.  Allnatt  of  Cheltenham  protesting  against  the 
cruelty  of  vaccination  as  practised  upon  the  children  of 
the  poor.  He  recalled  the  days  when  he  was  a  pupil  of 
Dr.  Walker,  in  1825-26,  and  his  instructions  were  to  dip 
the  point  of  the  lancet  into  the  fresh  lymph,  and  insert 
it  tenderly  without  drawing  blood,  under  the  cutis  of  the 
forearm,  and  protect  the  wound  with  a  slight  compress. 


INTRODUCTION.  xxxi 


"  But  the  case  is  altered  now,"  he  says.  "  Some  of  the 
"  vaccinators  use  real  instruments  of  torture.  Ivory 
"  points  are  driven  into  the  flesh,  and  wounds  ensue  which 
"  become  erysipelatous,  and  in  the  delicate  constitutions 
"  of  weakly  children  fatal." 

The  case  is  altered  now,  says  Dr.  Allnatt ;  but  why  is 
the  case  altered  now  ?  Why,  because,  under  the  old 
terms  vaccination  was  more  and  more  seen  to  be  no  de- 
fence against  smallpox ;  and  to  preserve  the  rite,  and  the 
gains  from  the  rite,  the  marks  doctrine  was  invented,  or, 
rather,  revived,  and  hailed  as  a  sort  of  revelation  from 
heaven. 

REVACCINATION  INTRODUCED. 

When  vaccination  was  seen  to  be  no  preventive  of 
smallpox,  it  was  conjectured  that  it  might  require  re- 
newal, a  suggestion  which  distressed  Jenner  exceedingly. 
It  was  calculated,  he  said,  "  to  do  unspeakable  mischief," 
depriving  his  discovery  "  of  more  than  half  its  virtues." 
But  as  experience  continued  to  belie  the  claim  made  for 
vaccination  as  a  permanent  defence,  it  was  natural  that 
those  interested  in  its  performance  should  endeavour  to 
retrieve  its  waning  credit.  Thus  revaccination  began  to 
be  practised.  Between  1830  and  1835  there  were  13,861 
revaccinations  effected  in  the  army  of  Wurtemburg.  Dr. 
Holland  (subsequently  Sir  Henry)  after  recording  the 
accumulating  proofs  of  the  futility  of  vaccination  in 
1839,  recommended  revaccination  as  a  probable  resource, 
and  the  recommendation  gradually  acquired  authority. 
The  London  Medical  Gazette  in  1844  boldly  proclaimed, 
"  Revaccinate,  revaccinate ! "  But  so  late  as  1851  the 
National  Vaccine  Establishment  protested  against  the 
innovation,  saying,  "  The  restriction  of  the  protective 
"  power  of  vaccination  to  any  age,  or  to  any  term  of 
"  years,  is  an  hypothesis  contradicted  by  experience  and 
"  wholly  unsupported  by  analogy."  Whatever  the  ex- 
perience, however,  and  whatever  the  analogy,  there  was 
the  indisputable  fact,  that  vaccination  in  most  unimpeach- 
able form  did  not  avert  smallpox,  and  that  if  the  public 


xxxii  INTRODUCTION. 


faith  and  the  public  money  were  to  be  retained  some 
fresh  artifice  was  essential.  It  was  hard  to  surrender  the 
original  claim  of  the  equivalence  of  vaccination  to  small- 
pox ;  but  it  needs  must  when  the  devil  drives ;  and  so  it 
has  come  to  be  admitted  that  Jenner  was  mistaken,  and 
the  vaccine  rite  to  be  effectual  must  be  renewed. 


VACCINISATION. 

Dr.  Colin  expresses  what  is  now  the  common  medical 
opinion  in  saying,  "  We  must  not  stop  at  a  single  vaccina- 
"  tion.  We  must  establish  the  firm  conviction  in  the  public 
"  mind,  that  vaccine  prophylaxy  is  only  real  and  complete 
"  when  periodically  renewed ; "  and  Dr.  Warlomont,  chief 
of  Belgian  vaccinators,  goes  yet  further  in  advising  and 
practising  what  he  calls  Vaccinisation ;  which  is,  that 
every  subject  of  the  rite  be  vaccinated  again  and  again 
until  vesicles  cease  to  respond  to  the  insertion  of  virus. 
Then,  and  then  only,  can  the  victim  be  guaranteed  from 
smallpox  !  Such  are  the  shifts  to  which  vaccinators  have 
been  reduced.  If  their  insurance  were  valid,  the  premium 
would  exceed  the  principal,  whilst  there  is  no  reason  to 
believe  the  new  security  is  a  whit  better  than  the  old. 
In  these  frantic  prescriptions  we  see  the  quackery  in  its 
death-throes. 

ABSURDITY   OF  REVACCINATION. 

As  for  re  vaccination  keeping  off  smallpox,  it  is  absurd, 
and  ought  to  be  known  for  absurd.  The  chief  incidence 
of  smallpox  is  among  the  young,  in  whom  it  cannot  be 
pretended  that  the  influence  of  primary  vaccination  is 
exhausted.  The  subjects  of  re  vaccination  are  passing,  or 
have  passed  out  of  the  smallpox  age  ;  and  as  the  statistics 
of  the  army  and  navy  prove,  our  soldiers  and  sailors 
are  no  more  exempt  from  smallpox  than  the  unrevac- 
cinated  civil  population  of  corresponding  years.  In 
this  matter,  the  old  words  stand  true,  Populus  vult 
decipi;  decipiatur. 


INTRODUCTION.  xxxm 


THE   REDUCTION    OF   SMALLPOX. 

From  whatever  side  regarded,  the  original  and  success- 
ive claims  made  for  vaccination  are  seen  to  have  broken 
down  ;  but  a  practice  endowed  and  enforced  as  a  poll-tax 
for  the  benefit  of  the  medical  profession  is  not  lightly 
surrendered.  Instead  a  variety  of  defences,  more  or  less 
ingenious,  are  thrown  out. 

I. — One  of  these  is  the  reduction  of  smallpox.  It  is 
said,  "  Smallpox  was  once  a  common  disease,  and  is  now 
"  a  comparatively  rare  one — How  are  we  to  account  for 
"  this  improvement  otherwise  than  by  the  introduction 
"  of  vaccination  ? " 

The  answer  is,  that  smallpox  was  declining  before 
vaccination  was  introduced,  and  that,  too,  in  spite  of  the 
extensive  culture  of  the  disease  by  variolation ;  and  the 
decline  continued  during  the  first  part  of  the  present 
century  whilst  as  yet  nine-tenths  of  the  people  were  un- 
vaccinated.  Several  diseases  once  common  have  abated 
or  disappeared ;  and  why  should  we  attribute  to  an  in- 
commensurate cause  a  similar  abatement  in  smallpox? 
Leprosy,  once  extensively  prevalent  in  England,  has  dis- 
appeared. Why  ?  It  died  out  gradually ;  but  suppose 
some  rite,  analogous  to  vaccination,  had  been  brought 
into  vogue  contemporaneously  with  its  decline,  would 
not  the  rite  have  had  the  credit,  and  would  not  its  prac- 
titioners have  called  the  world  to  witness  the  success  of 
their  prescription  ? 

HAS  VACCINATION   SAVED  LIFE? 

II. — In  the  same  line  of  defence,  we  have  the  claim 
made  for  an  extraordinary  salvation  of  human  life. 
Thus  Sir  Spencer  Wells  in  a  recent  speech  observed, 
"  Jenner  is  immortal  as  a  benefactor  of  mankind.  It 
"  may  not  be  generally  known,  but  it  is  true,  that  Jenner 
"  has  saved,  is  now  saving,  and  will  continue  to  save  in  all 
"  coming  ages,  more  lives  in  one  generation  than  were 
"  destroyed  in  all  the  wars  of  Napoleon." 

The  answer  to  such  a  statement  is  to  call  for  proof  of 
the  lives  saved.  There  is  no  proof.  At  the  close  of  last 


xxxiv  INTRODUCTION. 


century,  20  per  cent,  of  the  mortality  of  Glasgow  was 
due  to  smallpox.  Smallpox  abated,  but  did  mortality 
abate?  Not  in  the  least.  Dr.  Robert  Watt  in  1813 
recorded  the  fact  with  amazement  over  it.  And  what 
was  true  of  Glasgow  was  true  of  other  cities  and  other 
populations.  There  may  be  a  cessation  of  smallpox,  but 
(unless  the  result  of  sanitary  improvement)  the  work  of 
death  is  merely  transferred  to  cognate  agencies.  There 
is  no  saving  of  life.  What  was  a  mystery  to  Watt  is  less 
of  a  mystery  since  the  development  of  sanitary  science. 
Zymotic  disease  in  its  various  forms  is  a  definite  evolu- 
tion from  definite  insanitary  conditions.  It  is  not 
affected  by  medical  repression,  nor  by  the  spontaneous 
substitution  of  one  variety  of  fever  for  another.  In  the 
the  words  of  Dr.  Farr,  "  To  save  people  from  smallpox  is 
"  not  enough  whilst  exposed  to  other  forms  of  disease. 
"  Thus  in  a  garden  where  the  flowers  are  neglected,  to 
"  keep  off  thistle-down  merely  leaves  the  ground  open  to 
"  the  world  of  surrounding  weeds."  To  lower  the  zymo- 
tic death-rate  it  is  necessary  to  reduce  the  conditions  in 
which  zymotic  disease  is  generated.  Citing  Dr.  Farr 
once  more,  "  To  operate  on  mortality,  protection  against 
"  every  one  of  the  fatal  zymotic  diseases  is  required ; 
"  otherwise  the  suppression  of  one  disease-element  opens 
"  the  way  for  others."  Dr.  Watt  and  Dr.  Farr  alike 
believed  that  vaccination  stopped  smallpox,  and  alike 
realised  that  the  disappearance  of  smallpox  was  accom- 
panied with  no  saving  of  life.  Sir  Spencer  Wells  is  of  a 
contrary  opinion,  which  he  shares  with  a  number  of 
people  who  prefer  the  free  play  of  the  prejudiced 
imagination  to  the  sobriety  of  exact  information. 

WHO  ARE  THE  UNVACCINATED  ? 

III. — Then  we  are  asked  to  believe  that  though  vac- 
cination may  not  keep  off  smallpox,  it  makes  it  milder, 
and  in  proof  we  are  entertained  with  low  rates  of  mor- 
tality among  the  vaccinated  and  high  rates  among  the 
unvaccinated. 

We  reply,  to  make  a  fair  comparison  between  the  vac- 


I  N'T  KO  D  rjgTIOH. 


cinated  and  the  un vaccinated,  it  would  be  necessary  to 
compare  class  with  class,  physique  with  physique,  age 
with  age.  In  other  words,  the  subjects  of  smallpox 
should  be  constitutionally  equal,  their  difference  being 
limited  to  vaccination  present  or  vaccination  absent 
much  is  obvious. 

But  when  or  where  has  such  comparison  been  even 
attempted  ?  Nor  would  it  be  easily  practicable  :  for  the 
vaccinated  comprise  the  best  portion  of  the  community, 
physically;  but  who  are  the  unvaccinated  ?  They  are 
the  waifs  and  strays  of  civilisation,  the  offspring  of  the 
miserable  and  the  vagrant,  who,  without  fixed  domicile, 
escape  the  attention  of  the  vaccination  officer.  These, 
whatever  their  ailment,  whether  measles,  pneumonia, 
diarrhoea,  would  exhibit  a  higher  rate  of  mortality  than 
the  vaccinated :  but  would  it  therefore  be  safe  to  argue 
that  vaccination  was  not  only  good  against  smallpox, 
but  against  measles,  pneumonia,  and  diarrhoea?  Y 
Is  these,  the  lowest  physically  and  most  neglected  of  the 
population,  who  drift  into  smallpox  hospitals,  who  are  ex- 
hibited as  fearful  examples  of  the  neglect  of  vaccination. 
It  might  be  added,  they  are  unbaptlsed  as  well  as  un- 
vaccinated, and  probably  the  one  defect  may  be  as  pre- 
judicial as  the  other. 

UXVACCINATED   DEATH-KATES. 

Our  contention  does  not  end  here.  Such  is  the  preju- 
dice in  favour  of  vaccination  that  a  bad  case  of  smallpox 
is  assumed  to  be  an  unvaccinated  case.  Over  and  over 
again  has  it  been  proved  that  vaccinated  patients  dead 
of  smallpox  have  been  registered  as  unvaccinated,  their 
death  being  taken  as  evidence  of  the  absence  of  the  sav- 
ing rite.  Again  in  severe  smallpox,  when  vaccina- 
tion marks  are  invisible,  the  sufferer  is  frequently 
set  down  as  unvaccinated.  Dr.  Russell,  of  the  Glasgow 
Hospital,  relates  that  patients  entered  as  un vaccinated, 
showed  excellent  marks  when  detained  for  convalescence 
Had  they  died,  they  would  have  gone  to  swell  the  ranks 
of  fearful  examples. 


xxxvi  INTRODUCTION. 


It  is  thus  that  the  high  death-rates  of  the  unvaccinated 
are  accounted  for,  the  framers  of  hospital  reports  appear- 
ing to  vie  with  each  other  in  extravagance.  We  are 
continually  adjured  in  the  newspapers  to  confess  our 
folly  and  repent,  because  40  or  60  or  80  per  cent,  of  the 
unvaccinated  have  perished  in  this  or  that  hospital 
because  unvaccinated.  To  us  such  statistics  have  fraud 
written  on  their  face,  and  the  more  they  are  sworn  to, 
the  more  unscrupulous  do  their  vendors  reveal  themselves. 
When  all  were  unvaccinated  last  century,  the  hospital 
death-rate  of  smallpox  ranged  about  18  per  cent.  Now 
we  are  asked  to  believe  that  death-rate  has  doubled, 
trebled,  quadrupled,  and  for  no  other  reason  apparently 
than  to  make  for  the  glory  of  vaccination. 

NURSES  EXEMPT  FROM   SMALLPOX. 

IV. — It  is  further  said  that  nurses  in  smallpox  hospitals 
never  contract  smallpox  because  they  are  revaccinated. 

To  establish  this  assertion,  it  would  be  necessary  to 
prove  that  prior  to  the  introduction  of  vaccination,  or 
rather  of  revaccination,  it  was  common  for  nurses  to  fall 
victims  to  the  disease.  The  attempt  is  not  made,  and 
wisely,  for  failure  would  be  conspicuous.  Jenner  never 
recommended  vaccination  as  a  protective  for  nurses. 
Their  general  immunity,  along  with  that  of  physicians, 
is  noted  throughout  our  older  medical  literature ;  nor  is 
the  reason  far  to  seek.  Smallpox  is  predominantly  an 
affection  of  the  young,  and  it  is  no  more  surprising  that 
a  nurse  should  be  proof  against  it  than  that  she  should 
be  proof  against  measles,  whooping  cough,  or  scarlet 
fever.  Nurses  occasionally  incur  these  maladies,  and 
they  occasionally  incur  smallpox. 

If  revaccination  preserves  nurses  from  smallpox,  to 
which  they  are  exposed  in  the  in  tensest  form,  it  should 
much  more  preserve  soldiers,  sailors,  policemen  and  post- 
men, whose  exposure  is  incomparably  less  intense ;  yet 
these  servants  of  the  state  (as  already  observed)  are  as 
liable  to  smallpox  as  their  unre vaccinated  fellow  citizens 
of  correspondent  ages. 


INTRODUCTION.  xxxvii 


To  speak  plainly,  the  selection  of  a  vocation  so  arduous 
and  repulsive,  marks  off  a  smallpox  nurse  as  unimpress- 
ionable, and  little  apt  to  catch  anything.  Smallpox, 
too,  is  like  tobacco  :  custom  fortifies  the  constitution 
against  its  immediate  effects.  If  the  atmosphere  of  a  small- 
pox hospital  is  endured  for  a  fortnight,  it  is  likely  to  con- 
tinue endurable.  On  the  other  hand,  if  a  volunteer 
sickens  on  probation,  she  is  not  reckoned  among  nurses. 
Lastly,  many  nurses  have  entered  hospitals  as  patients, 
and  have  accepted  service  in  default  of  other  occupation. 
On  these  grounds,  the  nurse  argument  breaks  down 
irretrievably.  At  first  sight,  it  seems  something,  but 
on  scrutiny  it  proves  nothing. 

POCK-MARKED  FACES. 

V. — Another  favourite  argument  for  vaccination  is  the 
disappearance  of  pock-marked  faces.  People  say  when 
they  were  young  such  faces  were  common,  whilst  now 
they  are  rare  ;  and  demand,  What  can  have  wrought  the 
change  if  not  vaccination  ? 

A  medical  man  at  a  public  meeting  tried  to  dispose  of 
some  statistics  adverse  to  vaccination  by  saying  that 
statistics  could  be  made  to  prove  anything;  and  presently 
went  on  to  relate  that  when  his  mother  was  a  girl  every 
third  person  she  met  was  pock-marked.  She  had  told 
him  so  repeatedly,  and  there  was  no  doubt  about  her 
accuracy.  Thus  statistics  in  general  were  untrustworthy, 
but  his  mother's  statistic  was  unquestionable. 

We  need  not  hesitate  to  allow  that  when  smallpox 
was  common  and  cultivated  pock-marked  faces  were 
more  numerous  :  but  we  must  not  forget  that  whether  a 
patient  is  marked  or  not  marked  is  very  much  a  matter 
of  treatment.  Many  at  this  day  pass  through  smallpox, 
and  severe  smallpox,  and  escape  unmarked,  simply  be- 
cause those  who  have  care  of  them  observe  certain 
precautions.  It  was  different  in  former  times.  The 
treatment  of  smallpox  was  atrocious.  The  sick-room 
was  made  pestiferous  by  the  exclusion  of  air  and  the 
maintenance  of  high  temperature.  The  patient  sweltered 


INTRODUCTION. 


under  bed-clothes.  He  was  neither  allowed  to  wash  nor 
change  his  linen.  He  was  drenched  with  physic  and 
stimulants.  In  hospitals,  patients  were  stuck  two  or 
or  three  in  a  bed,  and  stewed  together.  If,  under  such 
circumstances,  the  sick  were  restored  to  life  pock-marked, 
what  wonder !  Patients  who  were  fortunate  enough  to 
be  sufficiently  let  alone,  stood  the  best  chance  of  recovery. 

Besides  smallpox  was  not  equally  diffused.  In  some 
places  it  was  endemic  ;  in  others  it  appeared,  at  intervals ; 
and  in  others  it  was  hardly  known.  The  smallpox 
death-rate  of  Glasgow  was  double  that  of  London ;  and 
we  may  therefore  infer  that  pock-marked  faces  were 
twice  as  numerous  in  Glasgow  as  in  London.  Hence 
when  recollections  are  appealed  to,  they  should  be  local- 
ised. What  might  be  true  of  one  population  might  be 
grossly  untrue  of  another. 

It  has  been  observed  that  smallpox  was-  falling  off 
toward  the  close  of  last  century,  and  the  decline  acceler- 
ated in  the  present  century,  irrespective  of  vaccination. 
An  excellent  illustration  of  this  reduction  of  smallpox  is 
furnished  by  the  reports  of  the  National  Vaccine  Estab- 
lishment for  1822,  1825,  and  1837,  where  the  disappear- 
ance of  pock-marked  faces  from  London  is  triumphantly 
recorded  and  claimed  as  a  result  of  vaccination.  In  1831 
Dr.  Epps,  director  of  the  Royal  Jennerian  Society,  made 
the  like  observation  and  the  like  claim,  saying,  "  Seldom 
"  are  persons  now  seen  blind  from  smallpox.  Seldom  is 
"  the  pitted  and  disfigured  face  now  beheld  ;"  adding, 
"  but  seldom  do  mankind  inquire  for  the  cause.  It  is 
"  vaccination.  It  is  vaccination  which  preserves  the  soft 
"  and  rounded  cheek  of  innocence,  and  the  still  more 
"  captivating  form  of  female  loveliness."  Inasmuch  as 
not  ten  per  cent,  of  the  population  were  vaccinated  in 
1831,  the  claim  made  for  vaccination  was  absurd,  whilst 
the  disappearance  of  pock-marked  faces  was  sufficiently 
explicable  by  the  reduced  prevalence  of  smallpox. 

Where  then  is  the  argument  for  vaccination  from  the 
disappearance  of  pock-marked  faces  ?  When  anyone 
under  seventy  proceeds  to  recite  the  legend,  "  There  is 


INTRODUCTION.  xxxix 


"  no  use  in  arguing  against  vaccination,  for  when  I  was 
"  young  every  third  or  fourth  person  was  pock-marked," 
etc.,  etc.,  the  effect  is  droll.  It  shows  how  prone  we  are 
to  fancy  we  have  seen  what  we  think  we  ought  to  have 
seen.  Droller  still  it  is  when  striplings  of  five-and- 
twenty  and  thirty  profess  the  same  experience — "  When 
"  I  was  a  lad,"  and  so  forth  and  so  forth.  There  is  matter 
for  reflection  as  well  as  for  laughter  in  the  hallucination. 
Nevertheless,  if  pock-marked  faces  are  not  so  common 
as  they  must  have  been  a  century  ago,  they  are  by  no 
means  rare ;  and  if  the  argument  for  vaccination  were 
valid,  the  pock-marked  would  be  unvaccinated.  But  are 
they  ?  Those  who  will  take  pains  to  inquire  will  find 
that  almost  invariably  they  have  been  vaccinated,  and 
some  of  them  repeatedly,  the  vaccination  having  as  it 
were  induced  the  smallpox. 

VACCINIA  A  EEAL   DISEASE. 

Thus  far  we  have  chiefly  dealt  with  vaccination  as  if 
its  fault  were  limited  to  failure  to  prevent  smallpox ;  but 
vaccination  is  more  than  an  ineffective  incantation.  It 
is  the  induction  of  an  acute  specific  disease.  The  prime 
note  of  vaccination  is  erysipelas.  "  The  cowpox  inflarn- 
"  mation,"  said  Jenner,  "  is  always  of  the  erysipelatous 
"  kind."  He  held  that  cowpox  unattended  with  erysi- 
pelas was  "  incapable  of  producing  any  specific  effect  on 
"  the  human  constitution."  If  it  is  supposed  that  Jenner 
is  antiquated,  we  may  refer  to  a  distinguished  contem- 
porary. Mr.  John  Simon  replying  to  the  question, 
"  Whether  properly  performed  vaccination  is  an  abso- 
"  lutely  inoffensive  proceeding?"  answers  decisively,  "Not 
"  at  all ;  nor  does  it  pretend  to  be  so."  The  rationale  of 
vaccination  is  that  it  communicates  a  mild  variety  of 
smallpox,  and  that  with  a  little  of  the  devil  we  buy  off* 
the  entire  devil.  Dr.  Ballard,  Medical  Officer  to  the  Local 
Government  Board,  in  his  treatise,  Vaccination  :  its 
Value  and  Alleged  Dangers,  says,  "  Vaccination  is  not  a 
"  thing  to  be  trifled  with,  or  to  be  made  light  of ;  it  is 
"  not  to  be  undertaken  thoughtlessly,  or  without  due 


xl  INTRODUCTION. 


"  consideration  of  the  patient,  his  mode  of  life,  and  the 
"  circumstances  of  season  and  of  place.  Surgeon  and 
"  patient  should  both  carry  in  their  minds  the  regulating 
"  thought,  that  the  one  is  engaged  in  communicating,  the 
"  other  in  receiving  into  his  system,  a  real  disease — as 
"  truly  a  disease  as  smallpox  or  measles;  a  disease  which, 
"  mild  and  gentle  as  its  progress  may  usually  be,  yet, 
"  nevertheless,  now  and  then,  like  every  other  exanthe- 
"  matous  malady,  asserts  its  character  by  an  unusual 
"  exhibition  of  virulence." 

VACCINAL   FATALITIES. 

Here  we  have  Vaccinia  defined  as  disease  with  precau- 
tions for  its  safe  reception ;  yet  withal  it  is  allowed  it 
may  assert  itself  with  virulence.  But  where  do  we  find 
any  precautions  exercised  in  the  vaccination  of  the  poor  ? 
— that  is  to  say,  of  the  vast  majority.  Precautions  are 
not  only  disregarded,  they  are  unknown,  they  are  im- 
practicable. Infants  of  all  sorts  and  conditions  are 
operated  on  as  recklessly  as  sheep  are  marked.  Whether 
they  live  or  die  is  matter  of  official  indifference,  whilst 
each  is  warrant  for  an  official  fee.  Sir  Joseph  Pease, 
speaking  in  the  House  of  Commons,  said,  "  The  President 
"  of  the  Local  Government  Board  cannot  deny  that  chil- 
"  dren  die  under  the  operation  of  the  Vaccination  Acts  in 
"  a  wholesale  way."  Vaccination  conveys  an  acute  speci- 
fic disease  (having  a  definite  course  to  run  like  smallpox 
or  other  fever)  which,  whether  by  careless  treatment,  or 
superinduced,  or  latent  disease,  is  frequently  attended 
with  serious  and  fatal  issues.  Hence  it  is  that  vaccina- 
tion is  dreaded  and  detested  by  the  poor  on  whom  it  is 
inflicted  without  parley  or  mitigation ;  in  itself  a  bearer 
of  illness,  it  is  likewise  a  cruel  aggravation  of  weakness 
and  illness.  When  the  poor  complain  that  their  children 
are  injured  or  slain  by  vaccination,  they  are  officially  in- 
formed they  are  mistaken.  Dr.  Stevens,  a  well-known 
familiar  of  the  vaccination  office,  says  he  has  seen  more 
vaccination  than  any  man,  and  has  yet  to  witness  the 
least  injury  from  the  practice.  Variolators  used  to  say 


INTRODUCTION. 


the  same  of  their  practice  until  vaccinators  arose  and 
convicted  them  of  lying.  Coroner  Lankester  held  that 
vaccination  was  not  a  cause  of  death  "  recognised  by  law," 
and  was  therefore  an  impossible  cause.  Such  prevarica- 
tion is  mockery.  True  it  is  that,  if  a  child  dies  of  vac- 
cination, it  dies  of  erysipelas,  or  pycemia,  or  diarrhoea, 
and  it  is  easy  enough  to  ignore  the  primary  cause  and 
assert  the  secondary;  but  I  would  ask,  How  else  can 
death  ensue  from  vaccination  than  by  erysipelas,  pycemia, 
diarrhoea,  or  similar  sequelae  ?  If  vaccination  kills  a 
child,  how  otherwise  could  it  kill  ?  Even  should  death 
occur  directly  from  surgical  shock,  it  would  be  said,  the 
child  did  not  die  of  vaccination,  but  from  lack  of  vigour 
to  sustain  a  trivial  operation.  The  Sangrado  of  the 
Stevens  pattern  is  never  without  a  shuffle. 

VACCINIA  MODIFIED   IN  ITS   RECIPIENTS. 

It  is  usual  at  coroners'  inquests  on  vaccination  fatali- 
ties to  produce  children  vaccinated  at  the  same  time 
from  the  same  vaccinifer,  and  to  assert  that  inasmuch  as 
they  have  made  good  recoveries,  it  is  impossible  that  the 
virus  was  at  fault,  and  that  something  else  than  vaccina- 
tion must  have  been  the  cause  of  death.  The  argument 
often  impresses  a  jury,  but  it  is  grossly  fallacious.  Sup- 
pose a  mad  dog  bit  six  men,  and  that  five  escaped  injury 
beyond  their  wounds  and  fright,  and  that  one  died  of 
rabies,  would  the  escape  of  the  five  prove  that  the  death 
of  the  sixth  was  unconnected  with  the  dog  ?  Or  suppose 
an  equal  potion  of  gin  were  administered  to  six  infants, 
one  of  whom  died  and  five  recovered,  would  the  recovery 
of  the  five  prove  that  gin  did  not  kill  the  sixth  ?  Mr. 
Stoker  writes  to  the  newspapers  that  he  vaccinated 
twelve  other  persons  with  the  virus  he  used  for  Miss 
Ellen  Terry,  and  that  as  no  untoward  symptoms  appeared 
in  the  twelve,  therefore  Miss  Terry's  whitlow  had  no 
connection  with  her  vaccination — and  this  in  spite  of  the 
untoward  symptoms  falling  due  at  the  very  time  that 
vaccination  accounted  for  them  !  Any  reasons  are  good 
for  those  disposed  to  be  convinced,  and  who  have 


xlii  INTRODUCTION. 


settled  it  in  their  minds  that  vaccination  is  invariably 
harmless. 

No  doubt  there  is  virus  used  for  vaccination  that  is 
virulent  beyond  other  virus,  as  there  is  virus  that  is  com- 
paratively innocuous ;  but,  as  Dr.  Mead  observed  more 
than  a  century  ago,  "  It  is  more  material  into  what  kind 
"  of  body  smallpox  is  infused  than  out  of  what  it  is 
"  taken."  The  same  virus  that  one  constitution  may 
throw  off  with  little  effort,  may  induce  disease  and  death 
in  another.  Dr.  Joseph  Jones,  president  of  the  Louisiana 
Board  of  Health,  relates  that  "  In  many  cases  occurring 
"  in  the  Confederate  Army,  the  deleterious  effects  of  vac- 
'*  cination  were  clearly  referable  to  the  condition  of  the 
"  forces,  and  the  constitution  of  the  blood  of  the  patients  ; 
"  for  it  was  observed  in  a  number  of  instances  that  the 
"  same  lymph  from  a  healthy  infant  inoculated  upon 
''  different  individuals  produced  different  results  corres- 
"  ponding  to  the  state  of  the  system  ;  in  those  who  were 
"  well  fed  and  robust,  producing  no  ill-effects,  whilst 
"  in  the  soldiers  who  had  been  subjected  to  incessant 
"  fatigue,  exposure,  and  poor  diet,  the  gravest  results 
"  followed." 

Some  constitutions  are  peculiarly  liable  to  injury  from 
vaccine  virus,  just  as  some  constitutions  cannot  endure 
drugs  that  others  receive  without  inconvenience.  Thus 
it  is  that  fatalities  from  vaccination  are  frequent  in  cer- 
tain families.  Of  these,  neither  the  law  nor  medical  men 
condescend  to  take  account.  Parents  often  plead  in  vain 
for  exemption  from  the  rite  on  the  ground  that  they  have 
already  had  children  injured  or  slain  by  its  performance ; 
the  brutal  and  unscientific  argument  running,  "  How  can 
"  vaccination  hurt  your  children  when  it  does  not  hurt 
"  other  people's  children  ?" 

VACCINIA  PLUS  OTHER  DISEASE. 

Nor  is  the  case  against  vaccination  yet  complete.  The 
virus  used  is  not  only  Vaccinia,  but  more  than  Vaccinia ; 
for  it  is  impossible  to  propagate  virus  from  child  to  child 
without  taking  up  other  qualities.  This  was  clearly 


INTRODUCTION.  xliii 


foreseen  by  the  variolators  when  vaccination  was  intro- 
duced— they  making  it  a  point  to  take  smallpox  for 
inoculation  from  known  and  sound  subjects.  They 
maintained  that  cowpox  transferred  indiscriminately 
from  arm  to  arm  must  acquire  and  convey  constitutional 
taints ;  and  their  prognostication  was  speedily  and 
grievously  fulfilled  in  the  item  of  syphilis.  Notwith- 
standing, the  fact  was  furiously  contested.  It  was  said 
that  parents  used  vaccination  as  a  screen  for  their  own 
wickedness  ;  and  assertion  alternated  with  denial  even  to 
our  own  day.  At  last  the  conflict  is  at  an  end.  The 
evidence  has  grown  too  multitudinous  and  deadly  for 
evasion.  The  invaccination  of  syphilis  is  admitted,  and 
any  question  is  reserved  for  the  degree  of  frequency. 
Some  are  pleased  to  describe  the  risk  as  infinitesimal, 
but  their  pleasure  stands  for  nothing  but  itself.  Deeds 
are  expressive  beyond  words.  The  wide  resort  to  animal 
vaccination  on  the  Continent  and  in  the  United  States 
has  but  one  interpretation.  Doctors  and  patients  do  not 
abandon  what  is  easy  for  what  is  troublesome,  nor  incur 
the  risk  of  the  communication  of  bovine  disorders  unless 
under  the  influence  of  over-mastering  terror. 

STATISTICAL   EVIDENCE   OF  EXTRA  DISEASE. 

Relations  of  individual  experience  may  be  disregarded 
as  untrustworthy,  but  the  broad  evidence  of  national 
statistics  conveys  authoritative  lessons.  Vaccination  in 
England  was  made  compulsory  in  1853,  stringently  so 
in  1867,  and  systematically  extended  to  the  entire 
population.  If  therefore  it  were  true  that  vaccination 
often  communicates  more  than  Vaccinia,  and  that  it 
aggravates  existent  and  excites  latent  disease,  the  proof 
must  be  manifest  in  the  statistics  of  the  Registrar-General. 
Thus  argued  Mr.  C.  H.  Hopwood,  and  accordingly  he 
moved  in  the  House  of  Commons  successively  for  three 
Returns,  published  as  follows — VACCINATION,  MORTALITY, 
No.  433, 1877 ;  MORTALITY  (GENERAL  AND  INFANT),  No. 
76, 1880 ;  and  DEATHS  (ENGLAND  AND  WALES),  No.  392, 
1880. 


INTRODUCTION. 


These  Returns,  charged  with  curious  and  authentic 
information,  are  little  known,  and  have  been  treated 
with  significant  silence  by  the  press.  Obscurantism  is 
not  confined  to  ecclesiastics.  Our  valiant  journalists 
who  mock  at  the  Index  Expurgatorius,  and  abhor  the 
Russian  censorship,  are  in  their  little  way  as  ready  to 
act  the  same  part  in  favour  of  established  prejudice.  If 
facts  adverse  to  the  public  confidence  in  vaccination  are 
revealed,  it  is  considered  no  more  than  decent  to  keep 
them  out  of  sight. 

What  then  is  the  evidence  of  Mr.  Hopwood's  Returns  ? 
Briefly  this  :  they  clearly  illustrate  that  vaccination  does 
produce,  intensify,  excite  and  inoculate  disease  whose 
issue  is  death.  The  record  of  infant  mortality  from 
fifteen  specified  diseases  related  to  vaccination  stands 
thus — 

Prior  to  Vaccination  Act — 1847-53 — 

Infants  died,  1847,      -  -     62,619 

Out  of  a  population  of  17,927,609. 

Vaccination  Obligatory — 1854-67 — 

Infants  died,  1854,      -  -     73,000 

Do.  1867,      -  -     92,827 

Out  of  a  population  of  20,066,224. 

Vaccination  Enforced— 1868-75— 

Infants  died,  1868,      -  -     96,282 

Do.  1875,      -  -  106,173 

Out  of  a  population  of  22,712,266. 

Thus,  while  the  population  of  England  and  Wales  had 
increased  from  18  to  23  millions,  the  deaths  of  infants 
from  fifteen  diseases  had  risen  from  63,000  to  106,000. 
Had  the  mortality  kept  pace  with  the  population,  the 
deaths  in  1875  would  only  have  been  80,000 ;  that  is  to 
say,  in  1875  there  perished  in  England  26,000  infants 
who  would  have  lived  had  vaccination  remained  as  little 
in  vogue  as  in  1847  !  The  result  though  startling  in  the 
gross  is  precisely  what  might  have  been  predicted.  The 


INTRODUCTION.  xlv 


infancy  of  a  country  cannot  be  systematically  diseased, 
that  is  vaccinated,  without  exciting  and  aggravating 
other  maladies,  and  thereby  enlarging  the  harvest  of 
death. 

VACCINIA  AGGRAVATES   DISEASE. 

The  asserted  connection  of  vaccination  with  other 
ailments,  such  as  bronchitis,  sometimes  gives  occasion 
to  ignorant  ridicule.  "  Bronchitis,"  says  Sir  Lyon 
Playfair,  "  has  'about  the  same  relation  to  vaccination  as 
"  the  Goodwin  Sands  have  to  Tenterden  Steeple."  The 
answer  is  that  the  debility  produced  by  vaccination  pre- 
disposes to  affections  of  the  respiratory  organs.  The 
human  body  does  not  consist  of  isolated  compartments, 
but  is  an  organised  whole,  sympathetic  in  all  its  parts  and 
functions.  Erysipelas,  as  we  have  seen,  is  the  primary 
symptom  of  inoculated  Vaccinia,  and  diarrhoea  is  its 
commonest  sequence  ;  and  given  erysipelas  and  diarrhoea, 
what  vigour  may  remain  to  assist  and  throw  off  other 
ailments  ?  It  is  not  said  that  certain  maladies  are  com- 
municated by  vaccination,  but  that  vaccination  con- 
tributes to  their  fatality.  An  infant  that  would  have 
survived  bronchitis  dies  of  bronchitis  and  vaccination ; 
dies  of  teething  and  vaccination ;  dies  of  convulsions 
find  vaccination ;  dies  of  whooping-cough  and  vaccina- 
tion; and  so  on.  Again  disease  kindles  disease,  and 
many  a  child  might  outgrow  congenital  scrofula  or 
phthisis  if  the  latent  disorder  were  not  roused  by  vac- 
cination. For  these  reas'ons  no  doubt  need  be  entertained 
that  were  vaccination  abolished,  the  event  would  be 
immediately  signalised  by  an  extraordinary  fall  in  infant 
mortality. 

ORIGIN  OF  COMPULSORY  VACCINATION. 

If  vaccination  were  a  voluntary  superstition,  its  pre- 
valence would  be  sufficiently  deplorable ;  but  when  we 
think  of  it  as  inflicted  on  the  nation,  and  pressed  on 
those  who  know  it  for  an  injurious  imposture,  language 
is  apt  to  arise  which  it  is  expedient  to  repress.  It  may 


xlvi  INTRODUCTION. 


be  asked  how  it  came  to  pass  that  legislation  was  ever 
compromised  with  a  medical  prescription,  and  the  answer 
is  not  a  reassuring  one.  The  initial  error  was  the  endow- 
ment in  1808  of  the  National  Vaccine  Establishment, 
and  the  provision  of  vaccination  fees  in  1840  out  of  the 
poor  rate.  For  the  enforcement  of  vaccination,  there 
never  was  any  popular  demand — never  the  slightest. 
The  public  had,  however,  learnt  from  sanitarians  that  a 
large  part  of  the  sickness  from  which  they  suffered  did 
not  come  of  fate,  but  was  preventible ;  and  under  this 
novel  persuasion  the  vast  expenditure  on  sanitary  works 
during  the  past  fifty  years  has  been  cheerfully  incurred. 
Availing  themselves  of  this  favourable  disposition  in  the 
public  mind  toward  projects  in  the  name  of  health, 
certain  medical  place-hunters  operating  as  the  Epidemi- 
ological  Society  contrived  to  gain  the  ear  of  Government 
and  to  pass  a  compulsory  Vaccination  Act  in  1853.  The 
politicians  who  lent  themselves  to  this  transaction  dis- 
owned any  knowledge  of  vaccination.  They  acted,  they 
said,  under  medical  advice,  and  ran  the  bill  through 
Parliament  with  little  resistance.  The  Act  did  not 
personally  concern  M.P.'s.  If  they  happened  to  believe 
in  vaccination,  their  children  received  the  rite  with  all 
recognised  precautions.  Its  enforced  application  by  con- 
tract at  Is.  or  Is.  6d.  per  head  was  reserved  for  the 
unenfranchised  and  unconsulted  multitude ;  whilst  the 
administration  of  the  Act  provided  place  and  pay  for  its 
ingenious  promoters. 

RESISTANCE,  INFLEXIBLE  RESISTANCE. 

When  an  oppressive  law  is  enacted,  by  whatever 
strategy  or  however  corruptly,  its  repeal  is  no  easy 
matter.  The  oppressors  have  won  the  nine  points  of 
possession.  The  antagonists  of  the  Vaccination  Acts 
nevertheless  possess  a  certain  advantage.  Some  bad  laws 
can  only  be  denounced  as  it  were  from  a  distance ;  but 
vaccination  touches  every  household,  and  can  be  fought 
wherever  a  child  is  claimed  as  a  victim  for  the  rite. 

We  abhor  the  rite.     We  detest  it  as  an  imposture. 


INTRODUCTION.  xlvii 


We  dread  it  as  a  danger.  We  refuse  it  on  any  terms.  We 
encourage,  we  justify,  we  insist  on  the  duty  of  rejection. 
Our  contention  extends  and  prospers.  In  various  parts 
of  the  country  resistance  has  been  rewarded  with  success. 
The  evil  law  has  been  broken  down.  Freedom  has  been 
recovered  and  freedom  is  enjoyed.  In  other  parts  the 
struggle  for  liberty  proceeds,  and  as  it  proceeds,  light  is 
diffused  and  courage  evoked  for  enlarged  resistance. 
Elsewhere  there  are  vindictive  and  cruel  prosecutions, 
chiefly  of  humble  folk.  "  Respected  ratepayers,"  to  whom 
the  law  is  objectionable  and  its  penalties  trivial  annoy- 
ances, are  discreetly  passed  over.  Hard,  however,  is  the 
lot  of  poor  men,  who  for  love  of  their  children  affront 
the  dull  animosity  and  ignorance  of  English  Philistines 
whether  as  guardians  or  as  magistrates  on  the  bench  of 
injustice.  Shortly  co-operation  for  defence  and  insurance 
against  fines  will  enable  the  feeblest  and  most  fearful  to 
maintain  his  integrity  and  encounter  his  pursuers  with 
undaunted  front.  Parliament,  as  our  statesmen  allow, 
is  deaf  to  the  aggrieved  until  they  make  themselves  in- 
tolerable, and  to  raise  ourselves  to  that  pitch  must  be 
our  end  and  aim. 

COMPULSORY  EDUCATION  AND  VACCINATION. 

Many  good  people  are  distressed  over  the  operation  of 
this  extraordinary  law,  and  sometimes  in  their  perplexity 
adventure  for  excuse,  "  Surely  since  we  compel  parents 
"  to  educate  their  children,  it  cannot  be  wrong  to*  compel 
"  them  to  have  their  children  vaccinated." 

We  answer,  education  is  compulsory  so  far  as  it  is 
outside  conscience.  Compulsion  is  designed  to  overcome 
parental  indifference  and  selfishness :  where  it  confronts 
serious  convictions  it  is  arrested.  By  general  consent 
the  most  important  part  of  education  is  religion ;  and 
religion  is  precisely  that  part  of  education  which  is 
exempted  from  compulsion.  The  law  does  not  even 
enforce  some  form  of  religion,  so  that  parents  who  regard 
religion  as  superfluous  may  not  be  aggrieved. 

What  therefore  the  opponents  of  vaccination  demand 


xlviii  INTRODUCTION. 


is,  that  the  respect  thus  accorded  to  the  religious 
cpnscience  be  extended  to  the  scientific  conscience — to 
those  who  are  convinced  that  vaccination  does  not  pre- 
vent smallpox  or  is  an  injurious  practice.  Even  allowing 
it  to  be  a  harmless  ceremony,  resistance  would  be  justifi- 
able. It  would  be  in  vain  to  console  a  Baptist,  forced  to 
convey  his  child  to  the  parish  font,  with  the  assurance 
that  a  few  drops  of  water  could  do  no  harm.  It  is  not 
in  human  nature  to  submit  to  the  indignity  of  imposture ; 
and  to  thousands  of  Englishmen  vaccination  is  a  cruel 
and  degrading  imposture,  and  to  punish  them  for  their 
loyalty  to  what  they  think  right  is  every  whit  as  tyran- 
nical as  it  was  for  Catholics  to  persecute  Protestants, 
and  Protestants  Catholics,  and  Catholics  and  Protestants 
Jews.  There  is  no  difference  in  the  terms  of  in  tolerance ; 
and  there  is  no  difference  in  the  spirit  with  which  this 
latter-day  tyranny  is  confronted,  and  that  spirit  with 
which  religious  liberty  was  vindicated  and  won. 

CONDITIONS  OF  THE  CONFLICT. 

To  some  eyes  the  conflict  is  not  only  arduous ;  it  is 
hopeless ;  but  we  are  of  a  different  mind.  The  conflict 
may  prove  even  less  arduous  than  it  appears ;  and  for 
these  reasons.  The  law  as  it  stands  is  perfunctorily 
defended.  No  politician  answers  for  it  without  reluc- 
tance. Many  allow  that  a  serious  mistake  was  made 
when  legislation  was  enacted  for  medical  advantage  at 
medical  dictation.  The  Gladstone  government  proposed 
to  abolish  repeated  penalties.  The  central  authorities  at 
the  Local  Government  Board  make  no  secret  of  the  in- 
superable difficulties  which  attend  the  administration  of 
the  law.  They  advise  concession  to  its  resolute  adver- 
saries. They  do  not  reinstate  the  law  where  it  has 
broken  down.  Legislation  thus  discredited  is  sure  to 
collapse  under  broader  pressure.  The  medical  support 
is  still  weaker;  and  is  chiefly  confined  to  those  who 
represent  the  trade  element  of  the  profession — men  who 
would  defend  any  abuse  however  flagrant  if  established 
and  lucrative.  It  is  the  custom  to  laud  the  immortal 


INTRODUCTION.  xlix 

Jenner  and  the  salvation  he  wrought,  but  these  are  words 
of  an  old  song.  Those  who  have  penetrated  to  the  in- 
ception of  the  Jennerian  rite ;  who  know  the  absolute 
promise  by  which  it  prevailed  and  its  absolute  failure ; 
who  have  followed  its  successive  transformations  and 
varieties  with  their  respective  injuries  and  fatalities 
who  are  aware  of  the  Babel  of  confusion  and  contradic- 
tion in  which  its  venal  practitioners  are  involved — these 
we  say  recognise  how  impossible  it  is  for  vaccination  to 
be  brought  under  discussion  and  survive.  It  is  this 
consciousness  which  accounts  for  the  reserve  of  the  more 
prudent  order  of  medical  men.  They  excuse  their  acqui- 
escence in  the  delusion  (after  the  manner  of  ecclesiastics) 
by  the  exigencies  of  professional  loyalty;  and  by  the  sup- 
position that  the  harm  of  the  practice  is  exaggerated,  whilst 
it  serves  for  the  consolation  of  the  vulgar.  It  is  for  such 
reasons  that  we  consider  the  conflict  less  arduous  than  it 
appears.  The  fortifications  are  undermined;  the  bulwarks 
are  rotten  through  and  through.  Over  all,  we  place 
our  confidence  in  the  omnipotent  favour  of  the  truth. 
Goliath,  mighty  and  vaunting,  is  evermore  laid  low  by 
a  smooth  stone  shapen  in  the  waters  of  verity. 


A  WORD  FOR  THE  AUTHOR. 

The  Story  of  this  Great  Delusion,  I  have  tried  to  tell 
concisely,  keeping  close  to  matter-of-fact,  and  with  some 
exceptions  adhering  to  English  experience.  When  we 
venture  abroad,  we  are  apt  to  fall  into  inaccuracies  and 
draw  unwarrantable  conclusions.  I  am  told  my  animus 
is  too  pronounced,  and  that  I  should  have  done  better 
had  I  adopted  a  more  judicial  tone.  Ah  well !  we  should 
always  have  done  differently  had  we  done  differently. 
It  seems  to  me  a  man  does  best  when  he  is  most  truly 
himself;  and  I  question  whether  I  should  have  improved 
my  case  had  I  tried  to  conceal  my  real  mind  in  order  to 
make  a  more  startling  show  of  it  at  the  close. 
cl 


INTRODUCTION. 


L'ENVOI. 

Lastly,  a  word  to  those  who  are  accustomed  to  dismiss 
opponents  of  vaccination  as  fools  and  fanatics.  It  is 
related  of  Sydney  Smith  that  calling  on  Lord  Melbourne 
one  morning,  he  found  his  lordship  in  an  evil  temper  and 
cursing  at  large.  Smith,  urgent  about  his  own  affairs, 
at  last  observed  that  they  should  take  everything  for 
damned  and  proceed  to  business.  For  like  reason  I 
would  suggest  that  the  familiar  tirade  of  fool  and  fanatic 
be  taken  as  spoken,  and  that  we  proceed  to  discuss  vac- 
cination and  compulsory  vaccination  on  their  merits. 


DR.  GARTH  WILKINSON'S  CATECHISM. 

Q.  When  Whooping-Cough  is  not  rife,  what  is  that  due  to  ? 

A.  Nature. 

Q.  When  Scarlatina  is  not  rife,  what  is  that  due  to  ? 

A,  Nature. 

Q.  When  Cholera  is  not  rife,  what  is  that  due  to  ? 

A.  Nature. 

Q.  When  Smallpox  is  not  rife,  what  is  that  due  to  ? 

A.  Vaccination. 

Q.  When  other  diseases  in  the  course  of  time  have  become  mild  or 
died  out,  what  is  that  due  to  ? 

A.  Nature. 

Q.  And  when  Smallpox  has  become  mild  or  died  out,  what  is  that 
due  to  ? 

A.  Vaccination. 


SANCHO  PANZA. — I  beg  of  your  Worship  that  you  would  let  your 
wound  be  dressed,  for  a  great  deal  of  blood  comes  from  that  ear :  and  I 
have  some  lint,  and  a  little  white  ointment,  here  in  my  wallet. 

DON  QUIXOTE. — All  this  would  have  been  needless  had  I  recollected 
to  make  a  vial  of  the  balsam  of  Fierebras  ;  for  with  one  single  drop  of 
that,  we  might  have  saved  both  time  and  medicine. 

SANCHO  PANZA. — What  vial,  and  what  balsam  is  that  ? 

DON  QUIXOTE. — It  is  a  balsam,  the  receipt  of  which  I  hold  in  memory  ; 
and  having  it,  there  is  no  fear  of  death,  nor  that  any  wound  will  be  fatal : 
therefore,  when  I  shall  have  made  it,  and  given  it  to  thee,  all  thou  wilt 
have  to  do,  when  thou  seest  me  in  some  battle  cleft  asunder  (as  it  fre- 
quently happens)  is,  to  take  up  fair  and  softly  that  part  of  my  body 
which  shall  fall  to  the  ground,  and  with  the  greatest  nicety,  before  the 
blood  is  congealed,  place  it  upon  the  other  half  that  shall  remain  in  the 
saddle,  taking  especial  care  to  make  them  tally  exactly  and  justl}r. 
Then  shalt  thou  give  me  two  draughts  only  of  the  balsam  aforesaid,  and 
instantly  wilt  thou  see  me  become  sounder  than  an  apple. 

SANCHO  PANZA. — If  this  be  so,  I  renounce  from  henceforward  the 
government  of  the  promised  island  ;  and  only  desire,  in  payment  of  my 
many  and  good  services,  that  your  Worship  will  give  me  the  receipt  of 
this  extraordinary  liquor ;  for  I  daresay  it  will  anywhere  fetch  more 
than  two  reals  an  ounce ;  and  I  want  no  more  to  pass  this  life  with 
credit  and  comfort.  But  first,  I  should  be  glad  to  know  whether  the 
making  of  it  will  cost  much  ? 

DON  QUIXOTE. — For  less  than  three  reals  thou  mayest  make  nine 
pints. 

SANCHO  PANZA. — Sinner  that  I  am  !  Why  does  your  Worship  delay 
making  and  showing  it  to  me  ? 

DON  QUIXOTE.— Peace,  friend,  for  I  intend  to  teach  thee  greater 
secrets,  and  to  do  thee  greater  kindnesses  :  but  at  present,  let  us  set 
about  the  cure  ;  for  my  ear  pains  me  more  than  I  could  wish. 


PART  L-VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 


CHAPTER  I. 

COTTON  MATHER  AND  ZABDIEL  BOYLSTON. 

To  the  Turks  we  owe  little,  and  in  the  little  is  included 
the  practice  of  inducing  smallpox  artificially.  The  prac- 
tice was  first  brought  under  English  attention  by  Emanuel 
Timoni  in  a  letter,  dated  Constantinople,  December,  1713, 
communicated  to  the  Royal  Society  by  Dr.  Woodward, 
and  published  in  the  Society's  Transactions  for  1714.* 
About  the  same  time,  Pylarini,  Venetian  consul  at 
Smyrna,  described  the  practice  in  a  Latin  pamphlet 
printed  at  Venice,  171 S,^  and  reproduced  in  the  Philoso- 
phical Transactions  for  1716.  Mr.  Kennedy,  an  English 
surgeon,  who  had  visited  Turkey,  also  reported  the  prac- 
tice under  the  designation  of  "Engrafting  the  Smallpox."^: 
Timoni  was  a  Greek  physician,  who  had  studied  at 
Oxford  and  Padua,  and  then  established  himself  in  Con- 
stantinople. He  described  "smallpox  by  incision"  as 
having  been  practised  in  Constantinople  for  forty  years, 
and  that  it  had  been  found  uniformly  successful  in  ward- 
ing off  smallpox  as  naturally  developed.  The  variolous 
matter  was  usually  taken  from  healthy  boys  suffering 
from  the  spontaneous  disease,  and  was  applied  to  persons 
of  all  ages  and  temperaments,  causing  them  no  more 
than  temporary  and  trifling  inconvenience. .  The  only 
preparation  requisite  for  incision  was  abstinence  from 
flesh  and  broth  for  twenty  or  twenty-five  days. 

*  Philosophical  Transactions,  No.  338,  1714. 

t  Nova  et  Tuta  Variolas  Excitandi  per  Transplantationem  Methodus. 
Jacob  Pylarinum.  Venet.  1715.  Reprinted  in  Philosophical  Transac- 
tions, No.  347,  1716. 

£  An  Essay  on  External  Remedies.     By  P.  Kennedy.     London,  1715, 


VAEIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 


It  so  happened  that  when  Woodward  read  Timoni's 
letter  to  the  Royal  Society,  he  at  the  same  time  produced 
a  selection  from  the  correspondence  of  Cotton  Mather  of 
Boston,  Massachusetts — a  curious  jumble  of  facts  and 
fancies.  Mather  had  been  elected  a  Fellow  of  the  Society, 
and  the  selections  from  his  correspondence,  and  Timoni's 
letter  appeared  in  the  same  number  of  the  Transactions, 
No.  338,  1714. 

Cotton  Mather  is  one  of  the  marvels  of  biography — a 
choice  specimen  of  Puritanism  developed  without  check. 
He  was  a  man  of  boundless  energy  and  incessant  indus- 
try, of  intense  piety  and  unlimited  self-confidence ;  and 
thus,  without  hesitation,  he  set  himself  to  extirpate 
witchcraft,  shrinking  from  no  atrocity,  until  the  frightful 
Salem  tragedy  of  1692  shocked  the  colony  into  mercy 
and  common-sense. 

Mather  was  just  the  sort  of  character  to  be  impressed 
with  Timoni's  description  of  the  short  and  easy  way  with 
smallpox ;  and  he  who  had  hanged  warlocks  and  witches 
with  sublime  assurance,  was  not  likely  to  have  scruples 
about  inoculating  the  community  when  inwardly  satisfied 
it  was  for  the  public  good.  The  audacity  and  tyranny  of 
conscientious  conceit  are  proverbial.  He  had,  however, 
to  exercise  patience  in  awaiting  an  opportunity  to  test 
the  Turkish  remedy,  for  there  had  been  no  smallpox 
in  Boston  for  nineteen  years — a  fact  worth  noting  by 
those  who  imagine  smallpox  was  an  omnipresent  ailment 
until  the  advent  of  Edward  Jenner.  In  1721  a  serious 
outbreak  occurred,  the  deaths  rising  in  October  to  100  a 
week  in  a  population  of  15,000.  Mather  convoked  a 
meeting  of  physicians,  and  laid  before  them  the  new  pre- 
scription, but  they  would  not  listen  to  it.  Dr.  Boylston, 
however,  was  persuaded,  and  inoculated  two  of  his  slaves, 
and  then  his  sons,  aged  five  and  six ;  whereon  he  was 
summoned  before  the  justices  and  severely  reprimanded. 
Undeterred  by  the  State,  and  supported  by  the  Church, 
he  persevered,  and  by  the  end  of  September  had  inocu- 
lated 80,  and  by  the  middle  of  December,  250. 

His  custom  was  to  make  a  couple  of  incisions  in  the 


COTTON  MATHER  AND  ZABDIEL  BOYLSTON.  3 

arms,  into  which  bits  of  lint  dipped  in  pox-matter  were 
inserted.  At  the  end  of  twenty-four  hours  the  lint  was 
withdrawn,  and  the  wounds  dressed  with  warm  cabbage 
leaves.  On  the  seventh  day  the  patient  sickened  and 
pustules  appeared,  sometimes  few,  sometimes  hundreds. 
Mather  and  Boylston  maintained  it  was  a  most  whole- 
some operation,  for  after  it  "  feeble,  crazy,  consumptive 
people,  grew  hearty,  and  got  rid  of  their  former 
maladies."*  To  be  poxed  was  to  be  rejuvenated. 

Cotton  Mather's  own  account  of  the  Boston  experi- 
ment is  worth  reading.  He  wrote — 

March  10th,  172$. 

The  distemper  hath  lately  visited  and  ransacked  the  City  of 
Boston ;  and  in  little  more  than  half  a  year,  of  more  than  5000 
persons  that  have  undergone  it,  near  900  have  died.  But  how 
many  lives  might  have  been  saved  if  our  unhappy  physicians  had 
not  poisoned  and  bewitched  our  people  with  a  blind  rage  that  it 
has  appeared  very  like  a  Satanick  Possession  against  the  method 
of  relief  and  safety  in  the  way  of  the  smallpox  inoculated  ! 

I  have  prevailed  with  one  physician  (and  for  it  I  have  had  bloody 
attempts  made  upon  my  life  by  some  of  our  Energumens)  to  intro- 
duce the  practice  ;  and  the  experiment  has  been  made  upon  almost 
300  Objects  in  our  neighbourhood,  young  and  old  (from  one  year 
to  seventy),  weak  and  strong,  male  and  female,  white  and  black, 
in  midsummer,  autumn,  and  winter,  and  it  succeeds  to  admiration ! 

I  cannot  learn  that  one  has  died  of  it ;  though  the  experiment 
has  been  made  under  various  and  marvellous  disadvantages.  Five 
or  six  have  died  upon  it,  or  after  it,  but  from  other  diseases  or  acci- 
dents ;  chiefly  from  having  taken  infection  in  the  common  way  by 
inspiration  before  it  could  be  given  in  this  way  by  transplantation. 

Dr.  Leigh,  in  his  Natural  History  of  Lancashire ,  counts  it  an 
occurrence  worth  relating,  that  there  were  some  catts  known  to 
catch  the  smallpox,  and  pass  regularly  through  the  state  of  it,  and 
then  to  die.  We  have  had  among  us  the  very  same  occurrence. 

It  was  generally  observed  and  complained  that  the  pigeon-houses 
of  the  City  continued  unfruitful,  and  the  pigeons  did  not  hatch  or 
lay  as  they  used  to  do  all  the  while  that  the  smallpox  was  in  its 
epidemical  progress  :  and  it  is  very  strongly  affirmed  that  our  dung- 
hill fowl  felt  much  of  the  like  effect  upon  them. 

We  have  many  among  us  who  have  been  visited  with  the  Plague 
in  other  countries  many  years  ago,  who  have  never  been  arrested 
with  smallpox  after  it,  though  they  have  been  exposed  as  much  as 
any  other  people  to  it ;  whence  the  belief  now  begins  to  prevail 

*  Philosophical  Transactions,  Vol.  xxxii.  p.  35. 


VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 


among  us,  that  they  who  have  had  the  Plague  will  never  have  the 
smallpox  after  it. 

Considering  the  developed  evidence  that  awaits  us  as 
to  the  character  and  results  of  inoculation,  it  would  be 
superfluous  to  discuss  this  singular  report,  but  we  may 
remark  the  consummate  audacity  with  which  Mather 
assumes  and  maintains  his  position.  What  a  masterly 
touch  of  the  quack  have  we  in  these  words — 

I  cannot  learn  that  one  has  died  of  it.  Five  or  six  have  died 
upon  it,  or  after  it,  but  from  other  diseases  or  accidents ;  chiefly 
from  having  taken  infection  in  the  common  way  by  inspiration 
before  it  could  be  given  in  the  way  of  transplantation. 

We  can  readily  understand  how  the  hand  that  could 
give  so  adroit  a  turn  to  awkward  disasters  could  in  other 
days  frame  irresistible  indictments  for  witchcraft. 

The  precise  truth  as  to  the  extent  of  the  Boston  epi- 
demic is  far  from  easy  to  ascertain  :  it  was  the  temptation 
of  the  inoculators  to  magnify  the  numbers  of  the  afflicted 
and  of  their  antagonists  to  minimise.  Thus  we  read — 

At  a  meeting  by  publick  authority  in  the  Town  House  of  Boston, 
before  His  Majesty's  Justices  of  the  Peace  and  the  Select  Men ; 
the  practitioners  of  physic  and  surgery  being  called  before  them, 
concerning  Inoculation,  agreed  to  the  following  conclusion : — 

A  Kesolve  upon  a  debate  held  by  the  physicians  of  Boston  con- 
cerning inoculating  the  Smallpox  on  the  21st  day  of  July,  1721. 

It  appears  by  numerous  instances,  that  it  has  proved  the  death 
of  many  persons  soon  after  the  operation,  and  brought  distempers 
upon  many  others  which  have  in  the  end  proved  deadly  to  'em. 

That  the  natural  tendency  of  infusing  such  malignant  filth  in 
the  mass  of  blood  is  to  corrupt  and  putrefy  it,  and  if  there  be  not  a 
sufficient  discharge  of  that  malignity  by  the  place  of  incision,  or 
elsewhere,  it  lays  a  foundation  for  many  dangerous  diseases. 

That  the  operation  tends  to  spread  and  continue  the  infection  in 
a  place  longer  than  it  might  otherwise  be. 

That  the  continuing  the  operation  among  us  is  likely  to  prove  of 
most  dangerous  consequence. 

The  number  of  persons,  men,  women,  and  children,  that  have 
died  of  smallpox  at  Boston  from  the  middle  of  April  last  (being 
brought  here  then  by  the  Saltertuda's  Fleet)  to  the  23rd  of  this 
instant  July  (being  the  hottest  and  worst  season  of  the  year  to  have 
any  distemper  in)  are,  viz. — 2  men,  strangers,  3  men,  3  young  men, 
2  women,  4  children,  1  negro  man,  and  1  Indian  woman,  17  in  all; 


COTTON  MATHER  AND  ZABDIEL  BOYLSTON.  5 

and  of  those  that  have  had  it,  some  are  well  recovered,  and  others 
in  a  hopeful  and  fair  way  of  recovery. 

BY  THE  SELECT  MEN  OF  THE  TOWN  OF  BOSTON. 

Dr.  Fleuart  of  Boston  wrote  to  London  that  of  70 
inoculated,  14  or  15  had  died ;  and  that  at  Roxbury, 
where  there  was  no  smallpox,  5  inoculated  had  died.* 

Conflicting  as  are  the  testimonies,  we  must  allow  much 
to  the  natural  aversion  from  an  operation,  not  only  novel, 
but  disgusting ;  but  taking  the  best  that  could  be  claimed 
for  the  new  practice  by  an  enthusiastic  advocate,  the 
benefit  was  trifling  when  seriously  scrutinised.  Dr. 
Boylston  visited  London  after  the  Boston  epidemic,  and 
finding  inoculation  in  high  vogue  he  published  an 
Account  of  the  Smallpox  inoculated  in  Neiv  England^ 
George  I.  and  the  Prince  and  Princess  of  Wales  had 
taken  Inoculation  under  their  august  patronage,  and 
Boylston  with  loyal  fervour  burst  forth — 

Shall  not  physicians  and  surgeons  recommend  and  bring  it  into 
greater  esteem  and  practice,  and  save  (under  God)  thousands  and 
tens  of  thousands  by  it ;  and  make  further  improvements  in  it ; 
and  set  more  vigorously  about  it  when  they  consider  their  great 
Pattern  and  Example  for  it,  namely,  the  greatest  and  wisest  of 
Kings,  their  royal  highnesses  the  Prince  and  Princess  at  the  head 
of  it ;  and  that  it  has  been  used  upon  their  lloyal  Issue  with  great 
success  ? 

Boylston  in  his  Account  recites  his  cases  with,  we 
think,  general  veracity.  He  performed  244  inoculations, 
and  says,  "  there  were  in  the  towns  near  Boston  about 
36  persons  more  inoculated,  which  all  did  well ;  namely, 
by  Dr.  Roby  about  11,  and  by  Dr.  Thomson  about  25, 
which,  together  with  my  244,  make  up  the  number  of 
280 ;  out  of  which  number  died  only  6  persons,  notwith- 
standing all  the  difficulties  the  practice  laboured  under." 

Beyond  measure  extraordinary  was  the  bland  assur- 
ance wherewith  Boylston,  in  common  with  Mather  and 

*  Letter  to  Dr.  Jurin  by  Isaac  Massey.     London,  1723. 

t  An  Historical  Account  of  the  Smallpox  inoculated  in  New  England 
upon  all  sorts  of  persons,  Whites,  Blacks,  and  of  all  Ayes  and  Constitu- 
tions. By  Zabdiel  Boylston.  London,  1726. 


VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 


others,  assumed  and  argued  that  the  280  inoculated  had 
been  thereby  delivered  from  the  plague  of  smallpox  and 
death.  Accepting  the  improbable  supposition  that  the 
280  were  a  fair  average  of  15,000  Bostonians,  of  whom 
one-third  took  smallpox,  we  have  to  abstract  two-thirds 
of  the  280,  or  186  as  superfluously  inoculated,  leaving  93 
saved  from  smallpox.  If  we  then  inquire  how  many 
of  these  were  saved  from  death,  and  resort  to  Boylston's 
statistics,  who  says, — 

In  1721  and  beginning  of  1722  there  were  in  Boston  5759  persons 
who  had  smallpox  in  the  natural  way,  out  of  which  number  died 
844 ;  so  that  the  proportion  that  die  of  natural  smallpox  appears 
to  be  one  in  six,  or  between  that  of  six  and  seven — * 

We  find  the  number  no  more  than  15,  from  which,  if 
we  deduct  the  6  who  died  under  his  hand,  his  trophies 
are  reduced  to  9,  to  save  whom  he  put  280  into  serious 
sickness  and  jeopardy — so  serious  indeed  in  some  in- 
stances (as  appears  from  his  own  notes)  that  there  was 
slight  reason  to  prefer  inoculated  to  spontaneous  smallpox. 
Viewed  thus  in  his  own  light — a  light  most  favour- 
able, how  vain,  not  to  say  impudent,  was  such  boasting 
as  this — 

Now,  if  there  be  any  one  that  can  find  a  faithful  account  or 
history  of  any  other  method  or  practice  that  has  carried  such  a 
number  of  all  ages,  sexes,  constitutions,  and  colours,  and  in  the 
worst  seasons  of  the  year,  through  the  smallpox ;  or  indeed 
through  any  other  acute  distemper  with  better  success,  then  I  will 
alter  my  opinion  of  this ;  and  until  then,  I  shall  value  and  esteem 
this  method  of  inoculating  the  smallpox  as  the  most  beneficial 
and  successful  that  ever  was  discovered  to,  and  practised  by  man- 
kind in  this  world. f 

And,  gaining  courage  through  his  own  noise,  he  went 
yet  farther,  and  proclaimed  that  smallpox  was  tamed 
and  subdued — 

It  is,  and  shall  be  acknowledged,  to  the  praise  and  glory  of 
God,  that  whereas  a  most  wild,  cruel,  fierce  and  violent  distemper, 
and  which  has  destroyed  millions  of  lives,  is  now  (by  that  happy 
discovery  made  of  its  transplantation)  become  tractable,  safe  and 
gentle.  | 

*  An  Historical  Account,  p.  39.     t  Ibid,  p.  38.     J  Ibid.  p.  46. 


COTTON  MATHER  AND  ZABDIEL  BOYLSTON.  7 

In  the  knowledge  of  the  emptiness  of  this  bounce,  it 
may  seem  malicious  to  withdraw  it  from  forgetfulness ; 
but  it  serves  to  point  the  truth  that  human  nature  in 
1726  was  much  the  same  as  human  nature  at  this  day, 
and  that  the  same  arts  of  audacious  assertion  and  rowdy 
rhetoric  were  in  practice  then  as  now.  Indeed,  who- 
ever is  sufficiently  wicked  to  presume  on  the  natural 
trustfulness  of  mankind,  and  will  lie  loud  enough  and 
long  enough,  may  attain  an  appalling  success — as  our 
story,  alas!  will  prove. 

One  thing  goes  to  Boylston's  credit :  he  did  not  pro- 
pose to  make  poxing  universal — to  poison  and  sicken 
everybody,  and  inflict  certain  injury  to  avert  future  and 
uncertain  danger  from  a  few.  He  proposed  to  reserve 
inoculation  for  emergencies — 

When  the  smallpox  left  Boston,  inoculation  ceased ;  and  when 
it  shall  please  Providence  to  send  and  spread  that  distemper  among 
us  again,  may  inoculation  revive,  be  better  received,  and  continued 
a  blessing  in  preserving  many  from  misery,  corruption  and  death. 

The  narratives  of  Mather  and  Boylston  are  of  special 
importance  because  we  have  in  them  the  true  lineage  of 
inoculation  as  introduced  from  the  eastern  to  the  western 
world.  Boylston  tells  us  that  when  smallpox  appeared 
in  Boston — 

Dr.  Mather,  in  compassion  to  the  lives  of  the  people,  transcribed 
from  the  Philosophical  Transactions  of  the  Royal  Society  the 
accounts  sent  them  by  Dr.  Timonius  and  Pylarinus  of  inoculating 
the  smallpox  in  the  Levant,  and  sent  them  to  the  practitioners  of 
the  town  for  their  consideration  thereon.* 

For  some  inscrutable  reason  the  true  position  of  Cotton 
Mather  in  the  history  of  inoculation  is  continually  over- 
looked or  mis-stated.  For  instance,  in  Mather's  biography 
in  the  excellent  English  Cyclopaedia,  it  is  said  that  he 
derived  his  information  and  impulse  from  the  letters  of 
Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu ;  a  statement  repeated  in 
the  memoirs  of  that  lady,  which  is  entirely  fabulous. 

An  Historical  Account,  p.  1. 


VABIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 


CHAPTER  II. 

LADY  MAKY  WOKTLEY  MONTAGU. 

As  for  History/'  said  the  Duke  of  Marlborough,  "I  know 
that  it  is  false;"  and  whoever  has  occasion  to  enter 
minutely  into  any  historical  question  will  be  apt  to 
concur  with  the  Duke.  Happening  to  refer  to  Walter 
Bagehot's  essay  on  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu,  I  found 
this  passage — 

She  brought  from  Turkey  the  notion  of  inoculation.  Like  most 
improvers,  she  was  roughly  spoken  to.  Medical  men  were  angry 
because  the  practice  was  not  in  their  books,  and  conservative  men 
were  cross  at  the  agony  of  a  new  idea.  Religious  people  considered 
it  wicked  to  have  a  disease  which  Providence  did  not  think  fit  to 
send  you  ;  and  simple  people  "  did  not  like  to  make  themselves  ill 
of  their  own  accord."  She  triumphed,  however,  over  all  obstacles ; 
inoculation,  being  really  found  to  lengthen  life  and  save  com- 
plexions, before  long  became  general.* 

Now  Bagehot  loved  accuracy  and  abhorred  credulity ; 
and  yet  in  these  lines,  delivered  with  as  much  confidence 
as  a  column  of  the  multiplication  table,  there  are  exhi- 
bited about  as  much  inaccuracy  and  credulity  as  could 
be  packed  into  the  space.  Let  us  see  what  Lady  Mary 
really  did  in  the  matter  of  inoculation. 

Mr.  Wortley  Montagu  was  appointed  ambassador  to 
the  Porte,  and  set  out  for  Constantinople  in  the  autumn 
of  1716  accompanied  by  his  wife,  then  in  her  twenty- 
seventh  year.  The  Ottoman  Empire  was  in  those  days 
powerful  and  proud,  disdaining  to  send  representatives 
to  Christian  Courts,  and  receiving  ambassadors  as  com- 
mercial agents,  or  as  bearers  of  homage  from  their  respec- 
tive sovereigns.  The  English  ambassador  reached  his 
destination  early  in  1717,  and  ere  a  month  had  passed, 
and  ere  Lady  Mary  had  time  to  look  around  and  appre- 
ciate the  strange  world  into  which  she  had  entered,  with 
sprightly  audacity  she  wrote  as  follows  to  her  friend 
Miss  Sarah  Chiswell — 


Literary  Studies,  Vol.  i.  p.  248. 


LADY  MARY  WORTLEY  MONTAGU. 


I  am  going  to  tell  you  a  thing  that  I  am  sure  will  make  you  wish 
yourself  here.  The  smallpox,  so  fatal,  and  so  general  amongst  us, 
is  here  entirely  harmless  by  the  invention  of  ingrafting,  which  is 
the  term  they  give  it.  There  is  a  set  of  old  women  who  make  it 
their  business  to  perform  the  operation  every  autumn,  in  the  month 
of  September,  when  the  great  heat  is  abated.  People  send  to  one 
another  to  know  if  any  of  their  family  has  a  mind  to  have  the 
smallpox :  they  make  parties  for  this  purpose,  and  when  they  are 
met  (commonly  fifteen  or  sixteen  together)  the  old  woman  comes 
with  a  nut-shell  full  of  the  matter  of  the  best  sort  of  smallpox,  and 
asks  what  veins  you  please  to  have  opened.  She  immediately 
rips  open  that  you  offer  to  her  with  a  large  needle  (which  gives  you 
no  more  pain  than  a  common  scratch),  and  puts  into  the  vein  as 
much  venom  as  can  lie  upon  the  head  of  her  needle,  and  after 
binds  up  the  little  wound  with  a  hollow  bit  of  shell;  and  in  this 
manner  opens  four  or  five  veins.  The  Grecians  have  commonly 
the  superstition  of  opening  one  in  the  middle  of  the  forehead,  in 
each  arm,  and  on  the  breast,  to  mark  the  sign  of  the  cross ;  but 
this  has  a  very  ill  effect,  all  these  wounds  leaving  little  scars,  and 
is  not  done  by  those  that  are  not  superstitious,  who  choose  to  have 
them  in  the  legs,  or  that  part  of  the  arm  that  is  concealed.  The 
children  or  young  patients  play  together  all  the  rest  of  the  day, 
and  are  in  perfect  health  to  the  eighth.  Then  the  fever  begins  to 
seize  them,  and  they  keep  their  beds  two  days,  very  seldom  three. 
They  have  very  rarely  above  twenty  or  thirty  [pustules]  in  their 
faces,  which  never  mark ;  and  in  eight  days'  time  they  are  as  well 
as  before  their  illness.  Where  they  are  wounded,  there  remain 
running  sores  during  the  distemper,  which  I  don't  doubt  is  a  great 
relief  to  it.  Every  year  thousands  undergo  this  operation ;  and  the 
French  ambassador  says  pleasantly  that  they  take  the  smallpox 
here  by  way  of  diversion,  as  they  take  the  waters  in  other  countries. 
There  is  no  example  of  any  one  that  has  died  in  it ;  and  you  may 
believe  I  am  very  well  satisfied  of  the  safety  of  the  experiment, 
since  I  intend  to  try  it  on  my  dear  little  son. 

I  am  patriot  enough  to  take  pains  to  bring  this  useful  invention 
into  fashion  in  England ;  and  I  should  not  fail  to  write  to  some  of 
our  doctors  very  particularly  about  it,  if  I  knew  any  one  of  them 
that  I  thought  had  virtue  enough  to  destroy  such  a  considerable 
branch  of  their  revenue  for  the  good  of  mankind.  But  that  dis- 
temper is  too  beneficial  to  them  not  to  expose  to  all  their  resent- 
ment the  hardy  wight  that  should  undertake  to  put  an  end  to  it. 
Perhaps,  if  I  live  to  return,  I  may,  however,  have  courage  to  war 
with  them.  Upon  this  occasion  admire  the  heroism  in  the  heart 
of  your  friend. 

In  this  letter  there  was  material  for  a  smallpox  idyl — 
nothing  easier,  nothing  surer,  "  smallpox  made  entirely 
harmless."  But  idyls  are  deceptive;  their  paradisiacal 


10  VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 

effects  are  obtained  by  the  sedulous  exclusion  of  what- 
ever is  otherwise.  About  the  time  that  Lady  Mary  was 
romancing  so  triumphantly  to  Miss  Sarah  Chiswell  she 
despatched  this  note  to  her  husband — 

Sunday,  23rd  March,  1717-18. 

The  boy*  was  engrafted  last  Tuesday,  and  is  at  this  time  singing 
and  playing,  and  very  impatient  for  his  supper.  I  pray  God  my 
next  may  give  as  good  an  account  of  him.  ...  I  cannot  engraft 
the  girl ;  her  nurse  has  not  had  the  smallpox. 

Why  should  the  engrafting  of  the  infant  have  been 
hindered  because  the  nurse  had  not  had  smallpox  ?  The 
answer  to  the  question  reveals  a  peril  concealed  from  Miss 
Sarah  Chiswell.  Because  the  engrafted  child  would  pro- 
bably have  communicated  unmitigated  smallpox  to  the 
nurse.  Why  not  then  engraft  nurse  and  child  ?  Because 
they  would  have  sickened  together,  and  mother  Mary  did 
not  care  to  incur  the  risk.  There  was  no  danger,  she  said ; 
none  whatever,  only  a  pleasant  diversion;  nevertheless 
she  preferred  discretion  to  her  own  voluble  assurance. 

In  History  we  have  always  to  suspect  the  picturesque, 
for  mankind  have  a  fatal  preference  for  handsome  error 
over  uncomely  fact ;  and  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu 
as  mother  of  English  inoculation,  and  derivatively  of 
vaccination,  is  ever  so  much  more  graceful  than  dull 
Timoni  and  Pylarini  in  the  Philosophical  Transactions, 
or  Cotton  Mather  in  New  England.  Few  condescend  to 
inquire  whether  Lady  Mary,  as  primary  inoculator,  was 
acting  independently,  or  whether  she  had  advisers  and 
prompters.  "  All  of  her  self  and  by  her  self  "  is  the  heroic 
representation — "  a  woman's  wit  against  the  world  ;"  and 
judgment  surrenders  to  fancy,  as  is  the  way  with  myths 
ancient  and  modern. 

But  it  so  happens  that  what  in  itself  ought  to  be  in- 
credible— that  a  young  Englishwoman  should  suddenly 
adopt  the  strange  practice  of  a  strange  people — is 
demonstrably  incredible.  Lady  Mary  did  not  act  alone. 
She  had  for  counsellor  and  director,  Charles  Maitland, 

*  Born  in  Yorkshire,  1713. 


LADY  MARY  WORTLEY  MONTAGU.  11 

the  physician  to  the  embassy,  who,  familiar  with  the 
fame  of  inoculation,  was  glad  to  observe  its  practice 
experimentally.  Maitland  writes — 

In  the  year  1717,  when  I  had  the  honour  to  attend  the  English 
Ambassador  and  his  family  at  Constantinople,  I  had  a  fair  oppor- 
tunity fully  to  inform  myself  of  what  I  had  long  before  heard, 
namely,  the  famous  practice  of  transplanting,  or  raising  the  small- 
pox by  inoculation." 

Here  we  may  note,  too,  that  Maitland  was  aware  that 
inoculation  did  not  originate  in  Turkey.  He  says — 

Whilst  universally  practised  all  over  Turkey  for  three-score  years 
past,  it  has  been  known  in  other  parts  of  the  East,  a  hundred,  or, 
for  aught  we  know,  some  hundreds  of  years  before.f 

It  was  Maitland  who  managed  the  inoculation  of  young 
Montagu,  and  he  thus  described  the  operation — 

About  this  time,  the  Ambassador's  ingenious  lady  resolved  to 
submit  her  only  son  to  it,  a  very  hopeful  boy  of  about  six  years  of 
age.  She  first  of  all  ordered  me  to  find  out  a  fit  subject  to  take  the 
matter  from,  and  then  sent  for  an  old  Greek  woman  who  had  prac- 
tised this  way  a  great  many  years.  After  a  good  deal  of  trouble 
and  pains,  I  found  a  proper  subject,  and  then  the  good  woman 
went  to  work ;  but  so  awkwardly  by  the  shaking  of  her  hand,  and 
put  the  child  to  so  much  torture  with  her  blunt  and  rusty  needle, 
that  I  pitied  his  cries,  who  had  ever  been  of  such  spirit  and  courage 
that  hardly  anything  of  pain  could  make  him  cry  before ;  and, 
therefore,  inoculated  the  other  arm  with  my  own  instrument,  and 
with  so  little  pain  to  him  that  he  did  not  in  the  least  complain  of 
it.  The  operation  took  in  both  arms,  and  succeeded  perfectly 
well.  .  .  He  had  about  an  hundred  pox  all  upon  his  body.  This 
operation  was  performed  at  Pera  in  the  month  of  March,  1717. 

That   is   to  say,  almost   simultaneously  with  the   Am- 
bassador's arrival  in  Turkey. 

The  embassy  returned  to  England  in  1718,  after  a 
residence  of  little  over  a  year  in  Constantinople.  The 
dates  are  worth  observation ;  for  whilst  it  appears  that 
the  doctor  and  the  lady  were  in  common  resolved  to  re- 
commend the  practice  of  inoculation  to  their  countrymen 
the  dates  prove  with  what  inexperience  and  levity  they 

*  Account  of  Inoculating  for  Smallpox.     London,  1722. 
t  A  Short  Account  of  Inoculation.     London,  1723. 


12  VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 


assumed  the  grave  responsibility.  If  quackery  be  asser- 
tion in  absence  of  knowledge  or  of  evidence,  then  we 
may  accurately  stigmatise  Maitland  and  Montagu  a  couple 
of  quacks.  But  so  far  as  concerns  Maitland  we  may  go 
farther,  for  he  expressly  tells  us— 

I  was  assured  and  saw  with  ray  eyes  that  the  smallpox  is  rather 
more  malignant  and  epidemic  in  the  Turkish  dominions  than  with 
us  ;  insomuch  that,  as  some  have  affirmed,  one-half,  or  at  least  one- 
third  part  of  the  diseased,  at  certain  times,  do  die  of  it ;  and  they 
that  escape  are  terribly  disfigured  by  it.* 

Yet  this  same  Maitland,  who  thus  testified  of  the  im- 
potence of  inoculation  to  mitigate  and  restrain  smallpox 
in  Turkey,  came  to  England  ready  to  assert  its  power  to 
mitigate  and  restrain !  It  is  difficult  to  find  words  of 
due  severity  for  such  impudent  inconsistency.  We  shall 
see,  however,  in  the  course  of  this  wonderful  story,  how 
every  rule  of  evidence  may  be  defied  in  the  matter  of 
smallpox,  and  how  it  is  possible  to  shut  one's  eyes  and 
prophesy  in  the  name  of  science,  and  have  noise  and 
hardihood  accepted  for  veracity. 


CHAPTER  III. 
MAITLAND'S  EXPERIMENTS. 

LADY  MARY  WORTLEY  MONTAGU  returned  to  England  in 
1718,  but  not  until  1721  did  she  fulfil  her  intention  of 
making  war  on  the  doctors,  and  incurring  their  resent- 
ment for  the  good  of  mankind.  In  the  spring  of  1721 
she  commenced  action  in  earnest  by  the  inoculation  of 
her  daughter — the  infant  that  it  was  considered  unsafe  to 
"  engraft"  when  at  Pera  in  1718.  In  Maitland's  words — 

The  noble  Lady  sent  for  me  last  April,  and  when  I  came,  she 
told  me  she  was  now  resolved  to  have  her  daughter  inoculated,  and 
desired  me  forthwith  to  find  out  matter  for  the  purpose.  I  pleaded 
for  a  delay  of  a  week  or  two,  the  weather  being  then  cold  and  wet. 
I  also  prayed,  that  any  two  physicians  whom  she  thought  fit,  might 

*  Account  of  Inoculating  for  Smallpox,  p.  4. 


MAITLAND'S  EXPERIMENTS. 


be  called,  not  only  to  consult  the  health  and  safety  of  the  child, 
but  likewise  to  be  eye  witnesses  of  the  practice,  and  contribute  to 
the  credit  and  reputation  of  it.  This  was  at  first  denied  me,  it 
might  be  out  of  a  design  to  keep  it  secret,  or  lest  it  should  come  to 
nothing. 

In  the  meantime  having  found  proper  matter,  I  engrafted  the 
child  in  both  arms,  after  the  usual  manner.  She  continued  easy 
and  well  till  the  tenth  night,  when  she  was  observed  to  be  a  little 
hot  and  feverish.  An  ancient  apothecary  in  the  neighbourhood 
being  then  called,  prudently  advised  not  to  give  the  child  medicine, 
assuring  the  parents  there  was  no  danger,  and  that  the  heat  would 
quickly  abate,  which  accordingly  it  did,  and  the  smallpox  began 
next  morning  to  appear.  Three  learned  physicians  of  the  college 
were  admitted,  one  after  another,  to  visit  the  young  lady  ;  they  are  all 
gentlemen  of  honour,  and  will  on  all  occasions  declare,  as  they  have 
done  hitherto,  that  they  saw  Miss  Wortley  playing  about  the  room, 
cheerful  and  well,  with  the  smallpox  raised  upon  her  ;  and  that  in 
a  few  days  after  she  perfectly  recovered  of  them.  Several  ladies, 
and  other  persons  of  distinction,  also  visited  this  young  patient,  and 
can  attest  the  truth  of  this  fact. 

One  of  the  learned  physicians  who  had  visited  Miss  Wortley, 
having  some  years  since  fully  informed  himself  of  this  method  of 
practice,  and  being  thoroughly  satisfied  of  the  safety  and  reason- 
ableness of  it,  at  length  resolved  to  try  it  in  his  own  family  ;  he  had 
formerly  lost  some  children  in  a  very  malignant  kind  of  the  small- 
pox, and  therefore  advised  me  to  lose  no  time  to  engraft  the  only 
son  he  had  left.  The  boy  (who  was  not  quite  six  years  of  age)  be- 
ing of  a  pretty  warm  and  sanguine  complexion,  the  Doctor  ordered 
about  five  ounces  of  blood  to  be  taken  from  him  ;  and  then,  in  ten 
days  after,  having  found  matter  which  he  liked,  I  inoculated  him 
in  both  arms.  This  was  performed  the  llth  of  May,  1721. 

The  learned  physician  here  referred  to  was  Dr.  Keith, 
and  the  facility  wherewith  he  adopted  the  novel  practice 
supplies  an  instructive  commentary  on  Lady  Mary's  an- 
ticipation of  the  resentment  of  "  the  profession  "  —  her 
first  imitator  coming  from  the  ranks  of  the  dreaded  self- 
seeking  obstructives.  Furthermore,  we  have  to  observe 
how  different  is  Maitland's  account  from  the  heroic  myth 
current  of  "  the  one  woman  confronting  the  prejudice  and 
ill-will  of  the  world."  Even  Lady  Louisa  Stuart,  who 
made  it  her  business  to  correct  many  misconceptions  as 
to  her  grandmother's  career,  writes  — 

Only  the  higher  motive  of  hoping  to  save  numberless  lives  could 
have  given  Lady  Mary  courage  to  resolve  upon  bringing  home  the 


VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 


discovery.  For  what  an  arduous,  what  a  fearful,  and,  we  may  add, 
what  a  thankless  enterprise  it  was,  nobody  is  now  in  the  least 
aware.  Those  who  have  heard  her  applauded  for  it  ever  since  they 
were  born,  and  have  also  seen  how  joyfully  vaccination  was  wel- 
comed in  their  own  days,  may  naturally  conclude  that  when  once 
the  experiment  had  been  made,  and  had  been  proved  successful, 
she  could  have  nothing  to  do  but  to  sit  down  triumphant,  and  re- 
ceive the  thanks  and  blessings  of  her  countrymen.  But  it  was  far 
otherwise.  .  .  Lady  Mary  protested  that  in  four  or  five  years 
immediately  succeeding  her  arrival  at  home,  she  seldom  passed  a 
day  without  repenting  of  her  patriotic  undertaking  ;  and  she  vowed 
that  she  never  would  have  attempted  it,  if  she  had  foreseen  the 
vexation,  the  persecution,  and  even  the  obloquy  it  brought  upon 
her.  The  clamours  raised  against  the  practice,  and  of  course 
against  her,  were  beyond  belief.  The  faculty  rose  in  arms  to  a  man, 
foretelling  failure  and  the  most  disastrous  consequences  ;  the  clergy 
descanted  from  their  pulpits  on  the  impiety  of  thus  seeking  to  take 
events  out  of  the  hand  of  Providence  ;  the  common  people  were 
taught  to  look  at  her  as  an  unnatural  mother,  who  had  risked  the  lives 
of  her  own  children.  .  .  We  now  read  in  grave  medical  biography 
that  the  discovery  was  instantly  hailed,  and  the  method  adopted, 
by  the  principal  members  of  the  profession.  .  .  But  what  said  Lady 
Mary  of  the  actual  fact  and  actual  time  ?  Why,  that  the  four 
great  physicians  deputed  by  Government  to  watch  the  progress  of 
her  daughter's  inoculation,  betrayed  not  only  such  incredulity  as 
to  its  success,  but  such  an  unwillingness  to  have  it  succeed,  such 
an  evident  spirit  of  rancour  and  malignity,  that  she  never  cared  to 
leave  the  child  alone  with  them  one  second,  lest  it  should  in  some 
secret  way  suffer  from  their  interference.* 

Thus  is  History  written  !  An  apothecary  and  three 
doctors,  selected  by  the  Wortleys  at  discretion,  and  ad- 
mitted singly  to  view  a  private  experiment,  are  converted 
into  "four  great  physicians  deputed  by  Government," 
rancorous  and  dangerous  !  Thus  are  myths  generated  ! 

Lady  Mary  was  a  woman  of  mark  in  society,  fashion- 
able and  literary,  and  her  exploit  was  naturally  the  talk 
of  the  town.  Among  her  friends  was  Caroline,  Princess 
of  Wales,  a  lady  of  more  than  ordinary  strength  of  mind 
and  intelligence,  with  a  taste  for  theology  and  philosophy, 
the  patron  of  Butler,  and  his  sympathetic  student.  It 
has  been  said,  "  There  never  was  a  clever  woman  that 

*  Letters  and  Works  of  Lady  Mary  Worthy  Montagu.  Vol.  i.  pp. 
88-90.  Ed.  1861. 


MAITLAND'S  EXPERIMENTS. 


was  not  a  quack  ;"  and  Princess  Caroline  was  an  illustra- 
tion of  its  truth.  The  new  remedy  for  smallpox  caught 
her  fancy,  and  she  determined  to  put  it  to  the  test.  She 
begged  of  George  I.  that  six  felons  should  be  pardoned 
on  condition  of  their  submission  to  inoculation,  and  the 
King  was  pleased  to  comply  with  the  extraordinary  re- 
quest. Maitland  was  then  called  upon  to  exhibit  his  skill, 
but  he  hesitated  to  act  as  hangman's  substitute  ;  whereon 
Sir  Hans  Sloane,  the  court  physician,  was  appealed  to. 
Sir  Hans  held  counsel  with  Dr.  Terry  of  Enfield,  who 
had  practised  physic  in  Constantinople,  and  knew  some- 
thing of  inoculation  ;  and  fortified  with  Terry's  assurance, 
he  was  enabled  to  overcome  Maitland's  scruples,  real  or 
affected.  Accordingly,  on  the  9th  of  August,  1721,  writes 
Maitland  — 

I  performed  the  operation  of  inoculating  the  smallpox  on  six 
condemned  criminals  at  Newgate  in  presence  of  several  eminent 
physicians,  surgeons,  and  others.  The  names  of  the  criminals 
were  — 

1.  MARY  NORTH,    .        .        .        Aged  36  years. 

2.  ANNE  TOMPION,  .         .  ,25 


3.  ELIZABETH  HARRISON, 

4.  JOHN  CAWTHERY, 

5.  JOHN  ALCOCK,    . 

6.  EICHARD  EVANS, 


19 
25 
20 
19 


On  Wednesday  morning,  9th  August,  he  made  incisions 
in  both  arms  and  the  right  legs  of  the  six.  Thursday 
passed  and  Friday  passed  without  any  indications  of 
constitutional  disturbance,  and,  despairing  of  success,  he 
obtained  fresh  pox  on  Saturday  from  Christ's  Hospital, 
and  repeated  the  inoculation  in  new  incisions  in  the  arms 
of  five  of  them.  He  had  no  matter  left  for  Evans,  who, 
it  appeared,  had  had  smallpox  in  September,  1720,  and 
who  therefore  escaped  hanging  unwarrantably.  The 
disease  now  "  took,"  and  progressed  satisfactorily.  Says 
Maitland — 

One  day  Mr.  Cook,  an  eminent  Turkey  merchant,  having  seen 
the  persons  engrafted  in  Newgate,  and  having  fully  considered 
then-  incisions  and  eruptions,  he  openly  declared  they  were  the 
very  same  as  he  had  observed  in  Turkey,  having  seen  a  great  many 


16  VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 

instances  ;  and  that  we  might  be  assured  they  would  never  again 
be  infected  with  smallpox. 

Dr.  Mead  suggested  another  experiment — that  cotton 
dipped  in  pox  should  be  inserted  in  the  nostrils ;  and  a 
young  woman  sentenced  to  death  received  her  life  on 
condition  of  submitting  to  the  operation.  Here  we  have 
Mead's  own  account  of  the  transaction — 

A  learned  author  has  given  an  account  of  the  practice  of  sowing 
smallpox,  as  they  call  it,  known  to  the  Chinese  above  three  hun- 
dred years,  which  is  this.  They  take  the  skins  of  some  of  the  dried 
pustules,  which  are  fallen  from  the  body,  and  put  them  into  a 
porcelain  bottle,  stopping  the  mouth  of  it  very  close  with  wax. 
When  they  have  a  mind  to  infect  any  one,  they  make  up  three  or 
four  of  these  skins,  putting  between  them  with  one  grain  of  musk 
into  a  tent  with  cotton,  which  they  put  up  the  nostrils. 

I  myself  have  had  an  opportunity  of  making  an  experiment  to 
this  purpose.  For,  when  in  the  year  1721,  by  order  of  his  Sacred 
Majesty,  both  for  the  sake  of  his  own  family,  and  of  his  subjects,  a 
trial  was  to  be  made  upon  seven  condemned  malefactors,  whether 
or  not  the  smallpox  could  safely  be  communicated  by  inoculation  ; 
I  easily  obtained  leave  to  make  the  Chinese  experiment  in  one  of 
them.  There  was  among  those  who  were  chosen  out  to  undergo 
the  operation,  a  young  girl  of  eighteen  years  of  age.  I  put  into 
her  nostrils  a  tent,  wetted  with  matter  taken  out  of  ripe  pustules. 
The  event  answered :  for  she,  in  like  manner  with  the  others,  who 
were  infected  by  incisions  made  in  the  skin,  fell  sick,  and  recovered ; 
but  suffered  much  more  than  they  did,  being,  immediately  after 
the  poison  was  received  into  the  nose,  miserably  tormented  with 
sharp  pains  in  her  head,  and  a  fever,  which  never  left  her  till  the 
eruption  of  the  pustules.* 

Finally,  says  Maitland— 

On  the  6th  of  September  they  were  all  dismissed  to  their  several 
counties  and  habitations.  The  thing  has  been  successful  on  all  the 
five,  far  beyond  my  expectation,  considering  their  age,  habit  of 
body,  and  circumstances;  and  it  has  perfectly  answered  Dr. 
Timoni's  account  of  the  practice,  and  also  the  experience  of  all 
who  have  seen  it  in  Turkey,  f 

So  Maitland  asserted,  but  others  were  of  a  different 
opinion.  Dr.  Wagstaffe,  who  visited  the  patients  in 

*  On  Smallpox  and  Measles.     By  Dr.  Mead.     London,  1747. 
f  Mr.  Maitland' s  Account  of  Inoculating  the  Smallpox.     2nd.  ed.    Lon- 
don, 1723. 


MAINLAND'S  EXPERIMENTS.  1.7 

Newgate  regularly,  maintained  in  a  letter  addressed  to 
Dr.  Freind — 

Upon  the  whole,  Sir,  in  the  cases  mentioned,  there  was  nothing 
like  the  smallpox,  either  in  symptoms,  appearances,  advance  of  the 
pustules,  or  the  course  of  the  distemper.  And  it  would  puzzle  any 
one  to  conceive  how  it  is  possible  that  smallpox  can  ever  be  pre- 
vented by  inoculation.  With  the  exception  of  one  of  the  men,  the 
girl  who  had  cotton  dipped  in  matter  thrust  up  her  nostrils,  had  as 
fair  a  smallpox  as  any  in  the  place.  * 

Sir  Hans  Sloane  and  Dr.  Steigertahl,  physician  to  the 
King,  to  test  the  matter  farther,  "joined  purses,"  and 
had  one  of  the  women  inoculated  in  Newgate  sent  to 
Hertford,  where  smallpox  of  a  severe  form  was  prevalent, 
to  lie  in  bed  with  smallpox  patients.  This  she  did  with 
impunity  ;  but  it  was  reasonably  objected  that  many  who 
were  not  inoculated  did  so  likewise  and  escaped  without 
harm. 

The  Newgate  experiment,  of  course,  caused  great  ex- 
citement, and  induced  many  repetitions  in  town  and 
country.  The  Princess  of  Wales  was  especially  alive  to 
the  importance  of  "the  great  discovery;"  and  for  her 
additional  satisfaction,  six  charity  children,  belonging  to 
the  parish  of  St.  James,  were  inoculated  ;  and  all  but  one 
"  took "  and  did  well ;  the  exception  being  due  to  the 
craft  of  the  child,  who,  for  the  sake  of  the  reward,  con- 
cealed the  fact  of  having  had  smallpox. 

Upon  these  trials,  and  several  others  in  private  families  [wrote 
Sir  Hans  Sloane] ,  the  Princess  of  Wales  sent  for  me  to  ask  my 
opinion  of  the  inoculation  of  the  Princesses.  I  told  Her  Eoyal 
Highness,  that  by  what  appeared  in  the  several  essays,  it  seemed 
to  be  a  method  to  secure  people  from  the  great  dangers  attending 
smallpox  in  the  natural  way.  That  preparations  by  diet  and 
necessary  precautions  being  taken,  made  the  practice  very  desir- 
able ;  but  that  not  being  certain  of  the  consequences  which  might 
happen,  I  would  not  persuade  nor  advise  the  making  trials  upon 
patients  of  such  importance  to  the  public.  The  Princess  then 
asked  me  if  I  would  dissuade  her  from  it :  to  which  I  made  answer 
that  I  would  not,  in  a  matter  so  likely  to  be  of  such  advantage. 
Her  reply  was,  that  she  was  then  resolved  to  have  it  done,  and 

*  A  Letter  to  Dr.  Freind  showing  the  Danger  and  Uncertainty  of  Inocu- 
lating the  Smallpox.     By  W.  Wagstaffe,  M.D.  London,  1722. 
2 


18  VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 

ordered  me  to  go  to  the  King,  who  commanded  me  to  wait  upon 
him  on  the  occasion.  I  told  his  Majesty  my  opinion,  that  it  was 
impossible  to  be  certain,  but  that  raising  such  a  commotion  in 
the  blood  there  might  happen  dangerous  accidents  not  foreseen  : 
but  he  replied  that  such  might  and  had  happened  to  persons  who 
had  lost  their  lives  by  bleeding  in  a  pleurisy,  and  taking  physic  in 
any  distemper,  let  never  so  much  care  be  taken.  I  told  his  Ma- 
jesty that  I  thought  this  to  be  the  same  case,  and  the  matter  was 
concluded  upon,  and  succeeded  as  usual,  without  any  danger  dur- 
ing the  operation,  or  the  least  ill  symptom  or  disorder  since.* 

The  Princess  Amelia,  aged  eleven,  and  Caroline,  aged 
nine,  were  therefore  inoculated  on  the  19th  of  April,  1722. 

Let  us  return  to  Maitland,  whose  triumph  for  the 
moment  appeared  complete,  and  with  it  his  assurance. 
To  his  detractors  he  professed  boldly — 

I  could  bring  a  great  many  cases  of  persons  inoculated  in  Turkey 
to  prove  the  constant  and  certain  success  of  the  practice;  in  all 
which  I  have  never  seen  any  miscarriage,  except  in  one,  which 
was  wholly  due  to  the  rashness  and  inadvertence  of  a  surgeon  at 
Constantinople. 

Is  it  not  a  matter  of  the  greatest  importance  for  us  to  know  how 
to  prevent  the  mighty  contagion  of  the  smallpox,  and  how  to  pre- 
serve our  children  from  the  violent  attacks  and  fatal  effects  of  it  ? 

To  divine  Maitland's  character — to  determine  how  far 
he  was  deceiver  or  deceived  is  not  easy.  He  obviously 
made  professions  in  vast  excess  of  his  knowledge.  One 
of  his  contemporaries  writes — 

I  remember  Mr.  Maitland  at  Child's  Coffee  House,  when  the 
experiment  was  just  begun  at  Newgate,  was  as  confident  and  posi- 
tive of  the  success  and  security  proposed  by  inoculation  as  if  he 
had  had  twenty  years  experience  without  any  miscarriage,  which 
made  those  who  heard  him  justly  suspect  he  was  more  concerned 
for  the  employ  than  for  the  success  of  it.  f 

He  had  not  the  proper  craft  of  the  conscious  rogue, 
for  alongside  his  assertions  of  absolute  competence  and 
safety,  he  set  forth  such  confessions  of  ignorance  and 
disaster,  that  one  is  impelled  to  pronounce  him  a  pur- 

*  An  Account  of  Inoculation  by  Sir  Hans  Sloane,  Bart.,  given  to  Mr. 
Ranby  to  be  published,  1736.  Philosophical  Transactions,  Vol.  xlix.  p. 
516. 

f  Isaac  Massey  to  Sir  Hans  Sloane,  1722. 


MAITLAND'S  EXPERIMENTS.  19 

blind  enthusiast.     For  example,  take  this  case,  which  he 
published  without  apparently  any  sense  of  its  scope — 

2nd  October,  1721. — After  due  preparation  of  the  body,  I  engraft- 
ed Mary  Batt,  an  infant  of  two  years  and  a  half  old,  daughter  of 
Thomas  Batt,  a  Quaker,  living  at  Temple,  within  three  miles  of 
Hertford.  The  red  spots  and  flushings  appeared  on  her  face  and 
neck  the  fourth  day;  and  she  kept  playing  about  well  till  the 
seventh  or  eighth,  when  she  became  a  little  heavy  and  thirsty, 
with  a  fuller  and  quicker  pulse  ;  then  the  pustules  came  out  fresh 
and  full,  and  the  incisions  discharged  a  thick  and  well  digested 
matter.  She  had  not  above  twenty  in  all  upon  her;  they  con- 
tinued about  three  or  four  days,  then  dried  away  and  fell  off,  and 
the  child  recovered  perfectly. 

Thus  far  all  was  well ;  but  what  happened  afterwards  was,  I 
must  own,  not  a  little  surprising  to  me,  not  having  seen  or  ob- 
served anything  like  it  before.  The  case  was  in  short  this.  Six 
of  Mr.  Batt's  domestic  servants,  namely,  four  men  and  two  maids, 
who  all  in  their  turns  were  wont  to  hug  and  caress  this  child  whilst 
under  the  operation,  and  the  pustules  were  out  upon  her,  never 
suspected  them  to  be  catching,  nor  indeed  did  I,  were  all  seized 
with  the  right  natural  smallpox,  of  several  and  very  different  kinds ; 
for  some  had  the  round  distinct  sort,  some  the  small  continued, 
and  others  the  confluent ;  all  of  'em  had  a  great  many,  but  espe- 
cially the  last,  with  the  usual  bad  symptoms,  and  very  narrowly 
escaped.  But  they  all  (God  be  thanked)  did  well  (except  one  maid, 
that  would  not  be  governed  under  the  distemper,  who  died  of  it,) 
and  now  enjoy  a  perfect  state  of  health.* 

Thus  at  the  outset,  smallpox  and  death  were  the  pro- 
ducts of  inoculation — the  peril  to  be  averted  was  incurred 
and  .multiplied.  Yet  the  man  who  thus  records  his  own 
infamous  ignorance,  had  the  impudence  in  the  same 
pages  to  assert — 

The  practice  prudently  managed,  is  always  safe  and  useful,  and 
the  issue  ever  certain  and  salutary.} 

Words  are  wasted  on  such  reckless  folly  :  we  perceive 
how  true  is  Carlyle's  observation,  "  Stupidity  intellec- 
tual always  means  stupidity  moral,  as  you  will,  with 
surprise  or  not,  discover  if  you  look." 

Before  leaving  Maitland,  we  may  take  another  leaf 
from  his  experience.  He  writes — 

12th  October,  1721. — I  inoculated  Joseph  and  Benjamin,  sons  of 

*  Maitland's  Account,  p.  27.  t  Ibid.  p.  33. 


20  VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 

William  Heath,  of  Hertford ;  the  first  of  about  seven,  and  the 
second  three  years  of  age  ;  both  with  the  same  matter  and  at  the 
same  time  :  the  last  had  a  gentle  and  favourable  kind ;  but  the 
first,  namely,  Joseph,  being  a  fat,  foul,  gluttonous  boy,  who  would 
not  be  confined  to  the  rules  and  directions  I  had  strictly  charged 
his  mother  withal,  as  to  diet  and  keeping  warm,  was  taken  very 
ill  before  the  eruption,  and  after  it  had  a  great  load  of  the  continued 
small  kind,  but  at  last  recovered  and  did  well. 

What  a  mighty  difference  is  here  to  be  observed  between  those 
two  boys !  The  reason  of  it  seems  to  be  plainly  this :  the  younger, 
who  had  the  favourable  kind,  was  of  a  clean  habit,  moderate  appe- 
tite, and  easily  governed  during  the  whole  process.  The  elder  was 
not  only  of  a  gross  foul  constitution,  but  likewise  had  a  voracious 
appetite,  always  eating  and  filling  his  belly  with  the  coarsest  food 
— as  cheese,  fat  country  pudding,  cold  boiled  beef,  and  the  like, 
which  I  saw  myself  as  I  came  in  by  chance  the  third  day  after  the 
operation ;  nor  was  there  any  care  taken  to  restrain  or  keep  him 
within  doors  in  cold,  windy,  frosty  weather ;  he  once  wet  his  feet 
in  water — insomuch  that  had  he  taken  the  smallpox  by  infection, 
the  world  could  not  have  saved  his  life.  Hence  it  appears  how 
necessary  it  is  to  cleanse  thoroughly  foul  habits  before  the  operation, 
and,  withal,  to  keep  patients  to  a  very  strict  regimen  under  it.* 

Verily,  as  Cobbett  said,  quackery  is  never  without  a 
shuffle.  As  we  shall  see,  inoculation  came  to  require  a 
preparatory  course  of  very  strict  regimen — so  strict  as  to 
be  impracticable  for  the  rank  and  file  of  the  world ;  but 
the  practice  was  at  first  commended  without  any  such 
conditions.  What  said  Maitland's  patron,  Lady  Mary, 
in  her  famous  letter  from  Adrianople  ? — 

The  smallpox,  so  fatal  and  so  general  amongst  us,  is  here  en- 
tirely harmless  by  the  invention  of  ingrafting.  .  .  .  Every  year 
thousands  undergo  its  operation  ;  and  the  French  ambassador  says 
pleasantly  that  they  take  the  smallpox  here  by  way  of  diversion, 
as  they  take  waters  in  other  countries.  There  is  no  example  of 
anyone  that  has  died  in  it. 

It  was  under  cover  of  such  seductive  assurances  that 
inoculation  was  introduced  to  England,  and  established 
in  perversity  and  quackery. 

*  Maitland's  Account,  p.  27. 


THE  FIRST  OPPONENTS  OF  INOCULATION.  21 

CHAPTER    IV. 

THE   FIRST   OPPONENTS   OF  INOCULATION. 

As  we  have  seen,  it  is  part  of  the  legend  that  the  in- 
troduction of  inoculation  was  fanatically  resisted  by 
physicians,  clergy,  and  mob;  but  the  resistance  was 
neither  fanatical  nor  extensive,  and  is  chiefly  the  inven- 
tion of  the  romancing  biographers  who  represent  Lady 
Mary  Wortley  Montagu  as  a  heroine  and  martyr  of 
science.  To  do  that  shrewd  and  brilliant  woman  justice, 
she  made  no  pretence  to  the  character  imputed  to  her, 
and  in  her  copious  correspondence,  there  is  not  a  hint  of 
annoyance  on  the  score  of  her  patronage  of  the  Turkish 
modification  of  smallpox.  On  the  contrary,  it  would 
appear  that  inoculation  brought  her  a  large  share  of 
that  veiled  notoriety  in  which  she  had  sincere  pleasure. 
Writing  to  the  Countess  of  Mar  in  1723,  she  says — 

Lady  Byng  lias  inoculated  both  her  children,  and  since  that 
experiment  has  not  had  any  ill  effect,  the  whole  town  are  doing 
the  same  thing ;  and  I  am  so  much  pulled  about,  and  solicited  to 
visit  people,  that  I  am  forced  to  run  into  the  country  to  hide  myself.* 

Lady  Mary  understood  her  countrymen  thoroughly, 
and,  thirty  years  after  her  exploits  in  inoculation,  she 
wrote  to  Mr.  Wortley  Montagu  as  follows — 

BRESCIA,  24th  April,  1748. 

I  find  Tar  Water  succeeded  to  Ward's  Drop.  'Tis  possible,  by 
this  time,  that  some  other  quackery  has  taken  place  of  that. 
The  English  are  easier  than  any  other  nation  infatuated  by  the 
prospect  of  universal  medicines,  nor  is  there  any  country  in  the 
world  where  the  doctors  raise  such  immense  fortunes.  I  attribute 
it  to  the  fund  of  credulity  which  is  in  all  mankind.  We  have  no 
longer  faith  in  miracles  and  relics,  and  therefore  with  the  same 
fury  run  after  recipes  and  physicians.  The  same  money  which 
three  hundred  years  ago  was  given  for  the  health  of  the  soul  is  now 
given  for  the  health  of  the  body,  and  by  the  same  sort  of  people — 
women  and  half-witted  men.  f 

*  Letters  and  Works  of  Lady  M.  W.  Montagu,  Vol.  i.  p.  468,  edition 
1861. 

t  Ibid.  Vol.  ii.  p.  161. 


VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 

Those  who  fancy  there  could  be  any  wide  or  effective 
resistance  to  inoculation  in  1721  misapprehend  the  con- 
ditions of  the  time.  There  was  no  scientific  knowledge 
of  the  laws  of  health ;  diseases  were  generally  regarded 
as  mysterious  dispensations  of  Providence  over  which  the 
sufferers  had  little  control ;  and  a  great  part  of  medicine 
was  a  combination  of  absurdity  with  nastiness.  It  would 
not  be  difficult  to  compile  a  series  of  recipes  from  the 
pharmacopoeia  of  that  day  which  would  alternately  excite 
amusement,  surprise,  and  disgust,  and  to  describe  medical 
practice  from  which  it  is  marvellous  that  ever  patient 
escaped  alive ;  but  so  much  must  pass  without  saying. 
Suffice  it  to  assert,  that  to  inoculation  there  was  little 
material  for  opposition,  rational  or  irrational ;  and  that 
what  we  might  think  the  natural  horror  of  transfusing 
the  filth  of  smallpox  into  the  blood  of  health,  was 
neutralised  by  the  currency  of  a  multitude  of  popular 
remedies  which  seemed  to  owe  their  fascination  to  their 
outrageous  and  loathsome  characteristics. 

Moreover,  as  the  dates  prove,  the  interval  was  brief 
between  the  introduction  of  inoculation  and  its  authorita- 
tive acceptance.  The  girl  Montagu  was  privately 
inoculated  in  April,  1721,  Dr.  Keith's  boy  on  the  llth  of 
May,  the  Newgate  experiment  took  place  on  the  9th  of 
August,  a  variety  of  experiments  followed,  and  lastly  the 
Princesses  Amelia  and  Caroline  were  inoculated  on  the 
19th  of  April,  1722 — sharp  work  for  one  year.  There 
was  not  time  for  opposition.  The  citadel  of  social 
approval  was  carried  with  a  rush.  As  a  contemporary 
observed — 

I  could  not  but  take  notice  with  what  united  force  and  zeal  the 
practice  was  pushed  on  upon  the  life  and  reputation  it  received 
from  its  admission  to  the  Boyal  Palace  ;  all  pens  and  weekly 
papers  at  work  to  recommend  and  publish  it ;  and  it  was  rightly 
judged,  then  or  never  was  the  time ;  and  had  it  not  been  for  some 
unlucky  miscarriages,  the  Inoculators  would  have  had  the  best 
chance  for  full  practice  and  full  pockets  that  ever  fell  into  the  hands 
of  so  small  a  set  of  men.* 

*  A  Short  and  Plain  Account  of  Inoculation.  By  Isaac  Massey. 
London,  1724. 


THE  FIRST  OPPONENTS  OF  INOCULATION. 

The  royal  approval  was  assiduously  worked,  and  there 
were  not  wanting  hints  that  to  question  the  goodness  of 
inoculation  was  equivalent  to  disloyalty;  and  thus  we 
find  the  Kev.  E.  Massey  protesting  in  a  letter  to  Mr. 
Haitian  d — 

I  wish  the  Doctor  more  candour  toward  those  who  differ  from 
him  than  to  insinuate  that  they  are  guilty  of  high  treason,  and  a 
better  argument  for  this  practice  than  the  cry,  Inoculation !  and 
King  George  for  ever !  * 

Bad  reasons  are  often  advanced  against  bad  policy,  and 
whilst  it  is  probable  that  some  silly  things  were  uttered 
against  inoculation,  yet  I  think  every  candid  mind  would 
be  impressed  with  the  moderation  of  Maitland's  chief 
adversaries.  There  was  Isaac  Massey,  for  instance, 
apothecary  to  Christ's  Hospital,  who  published  several 
pamphlets  in  opposition,  wherein  candour  and  good  sense 
are  throughout  conspicuous.  He  defined — 

Inoculation  as  an  art  of  giving  the  smallpox  to  persons  in  health, 
who  might  otherwise  have  lived  many  years,  and  perhaps  to 
a  very  old  age  without  it,  whereby  some  unhappily  come  to  an 
untimely  death,  f 

He  objected  to  the  exaggerated  dangers  of  smallpox 
wherewith  the  Inoculators  operated  on  the  public 
fears,  and  appealed  to  his  own  experience  in  Christ's 
Hospital — 

Where  there  are  generally  near  600  children,  the  nurseries  at 
Ware  and  Hertford  constantly  filling  the  places  of  those  who  go 
off.  It  hath  sometimes  happened  that  great  numbers  have  been 
down  of  the  smallpox,  and  'tis  but  seldom  that  the  House  is  free, 
or  not  long  so :  yet  I  daresay,  and  Sir  Hans  Sloane,  I  presume, 
will  say  so  too,  that  in  twenty  years  there  have  not  died  above  five 
or  six  at  most  of  the  distemper,  and  in  the  last  eight  years  there 
died  but  one.  J 

So  lightly  did  he  regard  the  peril  of  smallpox  to  the 
young  that  he  delivered  this  challenge — 

Suppose  that  twenty-five  Bluecoat  Hospital  boys  at  a  medium, 
one  year  with  another,  taken  ill  of  the  smallpox. 

*  Letter  to  Mr.  Maitland.     By  Edmund  Massey.     London,  1722, 
t  A  Short  and  Plain  Account  of  Inoculation,  p.  1.         £  Ibid.  p.  21. 


24  VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 

Suppose  we  likewise,  that  the  Inoculators  take  out  of  the 
several  wards,  yearly,  as  they  find  them,  twenty-five  boys,  which 
are  inoculated. 

Quere,  What  the  difference  of  success  ?  I  solemnly  protest  that 
if  this  could  be  put  in  practice,  I  would  lay  two  to  one  against  the 
inoculated. 

For,  as  I  have  said  before,  we  have  lost  but  one  smallpox 
patient  these  nine  years  [writing  in  1723]  although  1800  children 
have  been  in  the  House  during  that  time,  and  I  declare  to  have 
met  with  no  unequal  success  in  other  families  amongst  children 
about  the  same  ages  (that  is  between  8  and  15)  where  I  have  been 
concerned,  and  I  doubt  not  but  many  of  the  Learned  Faculty,  as 
well  as  some  others  of  my  profession,  can  say  as  much  from  their 
own  experience  and  observation.  * 

To  appreciate  Massey's  contention  on  this  point,  we 
have  to  remember  that  smallpox  is  the  designation  of  a 
disease  of  many  degrees  of  intensity ;  a  consideration 
which  Dr.  WagstafFe,  another  opponent  of  inoculation, 
thus  enforced — 

There  is  scarcely,  I  believe,  so  great  a  difference  between  any 
two  distempers  in  the  world,  as  between  the  best  and  worse  sort  of 
smallpox,  in  respect  to  the  dangers  which  attend  them.  ...  So 
true  is  that  common  observation,  that  there  is  one  sort  in  which  a 
nurse  cannot  kill,  and  another  which  even  a  physician  can  never 
cure,  f 

Of  course  the  Bills  of  Mortality  were  appealed  to  in 
evidence  of  the  extent  and  fatality  of  smallpox ;  and  as 
it  is  matter  of  common  belief  that  prior  to  inoculation 
and  Jenner  (there  is  always  a  haze  about  the  date)  people 
were  mown  down  with  smallpox,  it  may  be  worth  while 
reviving  the  table  of  relative  mortality  in  London  during 
the  first  twenty-two  years  of  the  18th  century. 


Burials  from  all  Diseases.                      From  Smallpox. 

1701 

20,471 

. 

1095 

1702 

19,481 

. 

311 

1703 

20,720 

898 

1704 

22,684 

. 

1501 

1705 

22,097 

. 

1095 

1706 

19,847 

• 

721 

*  Letter  to  Dr.  Jurin.     By  Isaac  Massey.     London,  1723. 
t  Letter  to  Dr.  Freind.     By  W.  Wagstaffe,  M.D.,  F.R.S.,  one  of  the 
physicians  of  St.  Bartholomew's  Hospital.     London,  1722. 


THE  FIRST  OPPONENTS  OF  INOCULATION. 


25 


Burials  from  all  Diseases.         From  Smallpox. 

1707 

21,600 

t 

1078 

1708 

21,291 

. 

1687 

1709 

21,800 

. 

1024 

1710 

24,620 

. 

3138 

1711 

19,833 

. 

915 

1712 

21,198 

1943 

1713 

21,057 

1614 

1714 

26,569 

t 

2810 

1715 

22,232 

. 

1057 

1716 

24,436 

2427 

1717 

23,446 

. 

2211 

1718 

26,523 

. 

1884 

1719 

28,347 

3229 

1720 

25,454 

1440 

1721 

26,142 

2375 

1722 

25,750 

'.    '.    2167 

505,598 


36,620 


By  these  tables  [wrote  Dr.  Jurin]  it  appears  that  upwards  of  7 
per  cent.,  or  somewhat  more  than  a  fourteenth  part  of  mankind, 
die  of  the  smallpox ;  and  consequently  the  hazard  of  dying  of  that 
distemper,  to  every  individual  born  into  the  world,  is  at  least  that 
of  1  in  14.* 

This  large  induction  from  London  to  universal  man- 
kind is  noteworthy,  because,  as  we  shall  see,  it  came  to 
be  often  made,  and  involved  a  serious  fallacy ;  for  unless 
universal  mankind  dwelt  in  conditions  similar  to  Lon- 
doners, it  was  idle  to  infer  a  common  rate  of  disease  and 
mortality.  The  population  of  London  in  1701  was 
estimated  at  about  500,000  (there  was  no  exact  census), 
rising  to  about  600,000  in  1720.  It  was  closely  packed 
and  lodged  over  cess-pools ;  the  water  supply  was 
insufficient,  and  there  was  no  effective  drainage.  The 
vast  multitude  was  disposed,  as  if  by  design,  for  the 
generation  and  propagation  of  zymotic  disease,  and 
specially  smallpox.  Little  attention  was  paid  to  personal 
cleanliness,  and  still  less  to  ventilation,  to  light,  to 
exercise.  The  condition  of  a  large  urban  community  a 
century  ago  is  almost  inconceivable  at  the  present  day. 


*  A   Letter    to   Caleb  Cotsivorth,    M.D. 
London,  1723. 


By  James  Jurin,    M.D. 


VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 


Londoners  were  then  only  slowly  and  blindly  rising  out 
of  those  modes  of  existence  which  made  the  Plague  of 
1665,  and  other  plagues,  possible.  Hence  we  need  not 
be  astonished  that  smallpox  was  a  common  and  persistent 
affliction  ;  but  it  was  less  prevalent  and  less  deadly  than 
it  is  the  custom  to  assert  ;  and  had  the  disease  not  been 
attended  with  injury  to  feminine  beauty,  there  might 
have  been  no  more  fuss  made  about  it  than  about  any 
other  form  of  eruptive  fever. 

It  has  also  to  be  observed,  that  smallpox  as  a  cause  of 
death  was  probably  much  exaggerated  in  the  Bills  of 
Mortality  ;  for  as  Isaac  Massey  pointed  out  — 

These  Bills  are  founded  on  the  ignorance  or  skill  of  old  women, 
who  are  the  searchers  in  every  parish,  and  their  reports  (very  often 
what  they  are  bid  to  say)  must  necessarily  be  very  erroneous. 
Many  distempers  which  prove  mortal,  are  mistaken  for  the  small- 
pox, namely,  scarlet  and  malignant  fevers  with  eruptions,  swine- 
pox,  measles,  St.  Anthony's  fire,  and  such  like  appearances,  which 
if  they  destroy  in  three  or  four  days  (as  frequently  happeneth)  the 
distemper  can  only  be  guessed  at,  yet  is  generally  put  down  by  the 
searchers  as  smallpox,  especially  if  they  are  told  the  deceased 
never  had  them.* 

Massey,  in  the  same  spirit  of  good  sense,  objected  to 
generalisations  about  smallpox  from  the  Bills  of  Mor- 
tality, as  if  all  who  died  were  slain  by  the  disease  and 
by  nothing  else. 

There  ought  to  be  no  comparison  [he  saidj  between  sick  people, 
well  regimented  with  diet  and  medicine,  and  those  who  have  no 
assistance,  or  scarcely  the  necessaries  of  life. 

The  miserable  poor  and  parish  children  make  up  a  great  part,  at 
least  one-half  of  the  Bills  of  Mortality;  to  confirm  this  I  have 
examined  several  yearly  bills,  and  I  find  that  the  out-parishes 
generally  bury  more  than  the  ninety-seven  parishes  within  the 
walls,  and  the  parish  of  Stepney  singly,  very  near  as  many  as  the 
City  of  London  yearly  ;  this  sufficiently  shows  what  little  help  and 
care  are  taken  of  the  poor  sick,  which  so  much  abound  in  all  those 
places.  f 

Of  course  there  lurks  a  fallacy  in  all  statistics  of 
disease  wherein  conditions  of  life  are  not  discriminated. 
Whether  patients  survive  or  die  from  any  zymotic 

*  Letter  to  Dr.  Jurin.     London,  1723.  t  Ibid. 


THE  FIRST  OPPONENTS  OF  INOCULATION.  27 

ailment  depends  upon  their  breed,  their  circumstances, 
their  habits,  and  their  medical  treatment  and  nursing — 
all  essential  particulars,  yet  difficult  to  define  and 
register  on  a  large  scale.  It  would  appear  that  in  sound 
constitutions,  and  with  fair  treatment,  smallpox  in  1721 
was  by  no  means  deadly,  whilst  in  bad  constitutions, 
and  with  exposure  and  neglect,  it  was  extensively  fatal. 
Yet  of  these  differences,  little  account  was  taken  by  the 
Inoculators,  and  the  malady  was  measured  and  discussed 
as  though  it  were  something  uniform  like  water  or  gold. 
Massey  in  one  year  had  49  cases  of  smallpox  and  one  death ; 
in  Stepney  an  equal  number  of  cases  might  have  shown 
a  mortality  of  20  or  30  per  cent. ;  whilst  Dr.  Nettleton 
reported  that  of  1245  cases  in  Halifax  and  adjacent 
towns  in  Yorkshire,  there  died  270,  or  about  22  per  cent.* 
One  of  Massey's  fears  in  relation  to  inoculation  was 
the  risk  of  poisoning  the  blood  with  more  than  smallpox. 
He  was  not  disinclined  to  experiment  with  "  duly  pre- 
pared children  infected  with  smallpox  by  inspiration," 
for  then — 

They  will  run  no  hazard  of  being  infected  by  a  leprous,  venereal, 
or  scrofulous  taint  that  may,  for  aught  we  know,  be  transplanted 
by  inoculation.f 

Massey's  prescience  has  been  woefully  verified ;  is 
indeed  under  perpetual  verification  in  the  pollution  and 
destruction  of  multitudes  of  infants.  The  notion  that 
virus  with  a  complex  of  qualities  can  be  transferred 
from  one  body  to  another,  and  operate  with  the  single 
quality  the  operator  is  pleased  to  favour,  is  a  notion  that 
might  pass  muster  in  a  manual  of  magic  or  folk-lore,  but 
which  never  can  have  any  warrant  in  human  physiology. 

Of  course  the  chief  strength  of  the  opponents  of  inocu- 
lation (ere  experience  gave  them  stronger  ground)  lay 
in  the  assertion  of  the  folly  of  incurring  a  certain  injury 
for  an  uncertain  advantage.  Whatever  the  risk  of  small* 

*  Mr.  Maitland's  Account  of  Inoculating  the  Smallpox  Vindicated. 
London,  1722,  p.  20. 

t  Letter  to  Dr.  Jurin,  p.  12. 


28  VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 

pox  to  those  who  have  it,  yet  large  numbers,  it  was 
argued,  pass  through  life  untouched;  and  why  should 
they  make  themselves  sick,  and  risk  their  lives  in  order 
to  obtain  a  superfluous  security  !  * 

The  frequent  assertion  that  the  clergy  thundered 
against  inoculation  is  untrue  and  invented  for  effect. 
The  Rev.  Edmund  Massey,  Lecturer  of  St.  Alban,  Wood 
Street,  did  preach  a  sermon  against  the  new  practice,  and 
a  fair  sermon  ifc  was,  according  to  the  standard  of  sermons. 
Maitland  published  some  remarks  on  the  sermon,  to 
which  Massey  rejoined ;  and  if  I  select  a  passage  from 
the  rejoinder  it  will  prove,  better  than  any  description, 
that  the  divine  was  more  than  a  match  for  the  surgeon. 
Said  Massey  to  Maitland — 

Inoculation,  in  your  sense,  is  an  engraftment  of  a  corrupted  body 
into  a  sound  one ;  an  attempt  to  give  a  man  a  disease,  who  is  in 
.  perfect  health,  which  disease  may  prove  mortal. 

This  I  said  was  tempting  Providence. 

To  which  you  reply,  It  resembles  that  of  a  person  who  leaps  out 
of  a  window  for  fear  of  fire  ;  and  surely  that  can  never  be  reckoned 
a  mistrust  of  Providence. 

No,  certainly,  Sir,  if  his  house  be  really  on  fire,  and  the  stairs 
burnt.  'Tis  the  only  probable  way  of  safety  left ;  and  if  the  leap 
should  kill  him,  the  action  could  neither  be  called  sinful  or  impru- 
dent. But  what  should  we  say  to  a  man,  who  jumped  out  of  the 
window  when  his  house  was  not  a-fire,  only  to  try  what  he  might 
perhaps  be  forced  to  do  hereafter  ?  This  mad  action  exactly  hits 
the  case  between  us.  For  if  my  house  be  not  on  fire,  that  is,  if  I 
am  in  no  apparent  danger,  what  need  I  jump  out  at  the  window  ? 
What  occasion  is  there  to  inoculate  me  ? 

To  carry  on  your  own  allegory,  I  would  ask  you,  Sir,  what 
human  or  divine  authority  you  have  to  set  a  man's  house  on  fire, 
that  is,  put  a  man  who  is  in  perfect  health  in  danger  of  his  life  by 
a  fit  of  illness  ?  His  own  consent  is  not  sufficient,  because  he  has 
no  more  lawful  power  over  his  own  life  or  health  than  you  have,  to 
put  either  of  them  in  hazard,  f 

In  short,  nothing  can  be  more  unfounded  than  the 
assumption  in  literature,  popular  and  professional,  that 
Maitland  and  Montagu  were  confronted  by  a  crowd  of 

*  Jurin's  Yearly  Account  of  Inoculation,  p.  13. 

t  Letter  to  Mr.  Maitland  in  Vindication  of  the  Sermon  against  Inocu- 
lation. London,  1722. 


COLLAPSE  OF  INOCULATION.  29 

howling  fanatics  over  whom  they  triumphed  as  light 
over  darkness.  Marvellous  is  the  imbecility  wherewith 
biographers  and  historians  reproduce  the  fables  of  any 
inventive  predecessor. 

I  shall  now  proceed  to  show  that  the  practice  of  inocu- 
lation introduced  by  Cotton  Mather  to  New  England, 
and  by  Maitland  to  England,  collapsed  in  a  few  years 
under  stress  of  the  mischiefs  and  fatalities  which  attended 
it ;  that  it  was  revived  in  a  subsequent  generation ;  that 
it  proved  a  curse  wherever  practised ;  and  that  finally  it 
was  abandoned  with  execration  in  the  Western  world. 


CHAPTER   V. 

COLLAPSE   OF   INOCULATION. 

WE  sometimes  fetch  from  afar  what  is  to  be  found  at  our 
own  doors ;  and  thus  it  was  with  inoculation.  No  sooner 
was  the  great  Eastern  preventive  advertised  than  it  was 
said — Why,  it  is  nothing  more  than  a  practice  common  in 
Wales  and  the  Highlands  of  Scotland  !  Perrot  Williams, 
M.D.,  and  Richard  Wright,  surgeon,  of  Haverfordwest, 
communicated  to  the  Royal  Society*  that  the  people  in 
Pembrokeshire  had  practised  inoculation  "  time  out  of 
mind."  They  either  scraped  the  skin  thin  or  pricked  it 
with  pins,  and  then  rubbed  in  pus  from  a  smallpox 
patient.  This  they  called  "  buying  the  smallpox,"  as  it 
was  customary  to  pay  something  for  what  was  fancied  to 
be  "  good  matter."  The  Welshmen  gave  the  same  account 
of  the  practice  as  the  Turks — there  was  no  danger,  no 
mishaps,  and  certain  security  from  smallpox.  In  Scot- 
land it  did  not  appear  that  the  skin  was  scraped,  but 
worsted  threads  saturated  with  pus  were  tied  round  the 
wrists  of  children  to  whom  it  was  desired  to  communicate 
the  disease.-)- 


*  Philosophical  Transactions,  No.  375,  1723. 

t  An  Account  of  Inoculation  in  Scotland.    By  A.  Monro.    Edin.,  1765. 


30  VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 


Dr.  Thomas  Nettleton,  of  Halifax,  Yorkshire,  was  an 
early  and  energetic  inoculator.  He  prepared  his  patients 
by  vomiting,  purging,  and  bleeding.  He  disliked  Mait- 
land's  small  punctures,  and  made  gashes  an  inch  long — 
one  in  the  arm  and  one  in  the  opposite  leg,  and  inserted 
bits  of  cotton  steeped  in  pus,  and  covered  them  up  with 
plaster  and  rollers.  It  was  his  design  to  produce  large 
wounds  with  copious  discharges,  so  that  peccant  matter 
might  be  freely  evacuated.  He  was  well  satisfied  with 
his  heroic  practice,  and  a  record  of  his  cases  was  sent  to 
the  Royal  Society* — a  record  from  which  any  reader 
will  be  apt  to  conclude  that  there  was  little  to  choose  be- 
tween Nettleton's  inoculations  and  smallpox  itself.  He 
made  no  pretence  that  inoculation  induced  a  trifling 
ailment,  but  only  one  less  serious  than  the  spontaneous 
disease,  congratulating  himself  on  having  conveyed  some 
sixty  inoculated  patients  through  grave  peril ;  whilst,  he 
wrote — 

In  Halifax,  since  the  beginning  of  last  winter,  276  have  had  the 
smallpox,  and  out  of  that  number  43  have  died.  In  Eochdale,  a 
small  neighbouring  market  town,  177  have  had  the  distemper,  and 
38  have  died.  It  is  to  be  noted  that  in  this  town  [Halifax]  the 
smallpox  have  been  more  favourable  this  season  than  usual,  and  in 
Leeds  they  have  been  more  than  usually  mortal;  but  upon  a 
medium  there  have  died  nearly  22  out  of  every  100  in  these  three 
towns,  which  is  about  a  fifth  part  of  all  that  have  been  infected  in 
the  natural  way.f 

English  experience  quickly  made  an  end  of  the  fiction 
under  cover  of  which  inoculation  had  been  introduced — 
that  it  was  attended  with  no  risk,  and  might  be  per- 
formed by  any  old  woman.  Dr.  Jurin,  secretary  of  the 
Royal  Society,  and  a  steady  advocate  of  the  practice,  thus 
laid  down  the  conditions  considered  essential  to  success — 
conditions  arrived  at  through  stress  of  suffering  and 
disaster — 

Great  care  ought  to  be  taken  to  inoculate  none  but  persons  of  a 
good  habit  of  body,  and  free,  not  only  from  any  apparent,  but,  as 
far  as  can  be  judged,  from  any  latent  disease. 

*  Philosophical  Transactions,  No.  370,  1722. 
t  Letter  from  Dr.  Nettleton  to  Dr.  Jurin,  dated  Halifax,  16th  June,  1722. 


COLLAPSE  OF  INOCULATION.  31 

The  body,  especially  if  plethoric,  ought  to  be  prepared  by  proper 
evacuations — as  bleeding,  purging,  vomiting,  etc. — though  in  many 
cases  there  will  be  occasion  for  very  little  or  none  of  these,  it  being 
sufficient  to  enjoin  a  temperate  diet  and  proper  regimen.  But  this 
must  be  left  to  the  judgment  of  the  physician. 

The  utmost  caution  ought  to  be  used  in  the  choice  of  proper 
matter  to  communicate  the  infection.  It  should  be  taken  from  a 
young  subject,  otherwise  perfectly  sound  and  healthful,  who  has 
the  smallpox  in  the  most  favourable  manner.  When  the  pustules 
are  properly  maturated,  and  just  upon  the  turn,  or  soon  after,  two 
or  three  of  them  should  be  ripped  with  a  glover's  needle  or  small 
lancet,  and  a  couple  of  small  pledgets  of  lint  or  cotton  are  to  be 
well  moistened  with  the  matter,  and  immediately  put  into  a  little 
vial  or  box,  and  earned  in  the  warm  hand  or  bosom  of  the  operator 
to  the  house  of  the  person  to  be  inoculated.* 

The  publication  of  these  conditions  was  little  short  of 
a  practical  surrender,  and  the  opponents  of  inoculation 
were  not  slow  to  avail  themselves  of  the  advantage. 
What  had  been  proclaimed  the  easy  and  universal  defence 
against  smallpox  proved  hedged  about  with  precautions 
and  preparations  for  which  only  health  with  wealth  was 
equal.  Where  was  the  profit,  argued  Francis  Howgrave, 
of  a  practice  which  leaves  the  feeble  and  delicate  and 
poor  to  their  fate,  which  makes  the  well  sick,  and  wounds 
those  that  are  whole,  whilst  smallpox  in  the  natural  way 
very  rarely  affects  life  where  the  habit  of  body  and  con- 
stitution are  good.-|-  Isaac  Massey  was  especially  indig- 
nant over  Jurin's  comparison  of  the  mortality  of  smallpox 
with  the  mortality  of  inoculation.  Jurin  reckoned  that 
out  of  every  100  who  took  smallpox,  20  died,  whilst 
only  2  in  100  died  from  the  effects  of  inoculation.  "  He 
forgets,"  said  Massey,  "  that  the  inoculated  are  picked 
lives.  If  this  be  fair,  Hang  fair ! "  Massey  was  right. 
It  was  absurd  to  institute  a  comparison  between  the 
common  smallpox,  comprising  that  of  the  poor  and 
neglected,  and  the  well-fed  and  carefully  tended  subjects 
of  inoculation.  Massey,  too,  was  strong  in  his  own 
experience,  saying — 

*  An  Account  of  the  Success  of  Inoculating  the  Smallpox  in  Great 
Britain.  By  James  Jurin,  M.D. 

t  Reasons  Against  the  Inoculation  of  the  Smallpox.  By  Francis  How- 
grave,  Apothecary.  London,  1724. 


32 


VAEIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 


I  have  a  list  of  the  names  of  32  children,  who  are  all  that  have 
had  the  smallpox  during  the  last  two  years  [1727]  in  Christ's 
Hospital,  and  every  one  recovered.  I  have  had,  besides,  17  or  18 
more  in  my  private  business,  of  whom  only  one  died.  Here,  then, 
we  have  49  cases  of  natural  smallpox  and  but  1  death.* 

Emphatic  likewise  was  his  protest  against  the  exaggera- 
tion of  the  inoculators. 

A  natural  simple  smallpox  seldom  kills,  unless  under  very  ill 
management,  or  when  some  lurking  evil  that  was  quiet  before  is 
roused  in  the  fluids  and  confederated  with  the  pocky  ferment.f 

At  this  point  we  may  see  the  judgment  and  the  fears  of 
the  English  people  had  gone  against  inoculation,  and  the 
practice  appeared  destined  to  gradual  extinction.  Accord- 
ing to  the  inoculators,  their  work  was  thus  summarised — 

182  inoculations  in  1721  and  '22,  with  3  deaths. 

292  „  in  1723,  with  6  deaths. 

40  „  in  1724,  with  1  death. 

Prince  Frederick  and  Prince  William  were  among  the 
inoculated  of  1724. 

256  inoculations  in  1725  and  '26,  with  4  deaths. 
124  „  in  1727  and  '28,  with  3  deaths. 

Dr.  Scheuchzer,  in  1729  tabulated  {  the  cases  and 
results  of  these  years,  1721-28,  as  follows — 


Age. 

No    oper-  I    SuccesB- 
ateduP°n-'  inoculated. 

Had  imper- 
fect Small- 
pox. 

Did  not 
take. 

Died. 

Under  1  year,  . 

24             24 

0 

0 

2 

1  to   2, 

34             33       i         0 

1 

4 

2  to    3, 

65             65 

0 

0 

1 

3  to   4, 

91             88 

0 

3 

1 

4  to   5, 

65             63               0 

2 

1 

5  to  10,            .     . 

257           249 

3 

5 

3 

10  to  15,            .     . 

140           131 

1 

8 

1 

15  to  20,            .     . 

104 

95               3 

6 

2 

20  and  upwards,   . 

110 

91               6 

13 

2 

Unknown,    .     . 

7 

6               0 

1 

0 

897 

845             13 

39 

17 

*  Remarks  on  Dr.  Jurin's  Last  Yearly  Account  of  the  Success  of 
Inoculation.  By  Isaac  Massey.  London,  1727.  t  Ibid.  p.  5. 

J  An  Account,  of  the  Success  of  Inoculating  the  Smallpox  in  Great  Britain. 
By  John  Gasper  Scheuchzer,  M.D.  London,  1729. 


COLLAPSE  OF  INOCULATION.  33 

Thus  stood  the  account  by  the  inoculators'  own  show- 
ing, and  it  was  by  no  means  a  satisfactory  balance-sheet. 
What  strikes  one  painfully  in  looking  over  it,  is  the  vast 
preponderance  of  the  young  and  defenceless  (780  out  of 
897)  upon  whom  the  abominable  experiment  was  tried. 
"Helplessness  which  commands  the  protection  of  the 
brave  is  the  opportunity  of  the  investigating  sneak." 
Whilst  the  inoculators  argued  laboriously  that  if  some 
danger  attended  artificial  smallpox,  it  was  trifling  to  that 
attached  to  the  spontaneous  disease  (among  other  obvious 
replies),  it  was  maintained  that  only  after  much  wider 
experience  could  it  be  known  what  were  the  precise 
effects  of  inoculation.  Inoculation,  as  introduced  by 
Mai t land  in  1721,  had  proved  vastly  different  after 
acquaintance,  and  there  was  no  telling  what  remained  to 
be  revealed.  As  Dr.  Wagstaffe  observed — 

Had  it  always  been  slight,  gentle,  safe,  and  useful,  with  all  those 
alluring  epithets  bestowed  on  it ;  had  none  had  above  a  hundred 
or  two  hundred  pustules,  and  no  one  died  of  it  in  the  space  of 
several  years  ;  and  had  there  been  no  instance  of  any  one's  being 
ever  again  infected  with  smallpox  who  had  any  pustules  at  all,  how 
few  soever,  raised  by  inoculation,  nobody  would  sooner  have  sub- 
scribed to  the  practice  than  myself.* 

The  primal  promise  that  the  inoculated  were  thereafter 
proof  against  smallpox  was  speedily  belied,  but  that 
difficulty  was  disposed  of  by  the  assertion  that  inocula- 
tion in  such  cases  must  have  been  imperfect,  for  it  was 
impossible  for  any  one  to  have  smallpox  twice.  The 
admission  of  fatalities  from  inoculation  was  very  tardily 
made ;  and  they  were  generally  referred  to  some  cause 
perversely  concealed  from  the  inoculator,  which,  had  he 
known,  would  have  prevented  his  operation.  Then,  the 
manifest  fatalities  were  naturally  suspected  to  stand  for 
a  larger  number  sedulously  kept  out  of  sight.  As  Massey 
put  it — 

The  ill  success  of  inoculation  is  very  partially  and  sparingly  given 
to  the  world.  The  operator  will  not  tell  it,  who  lives  by  the 

*  Danger  and  Uncertainty  of  Inoculating  the  Smallpox,  p.  64. 
o 


34  VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 

practice  ;  nor  will  the  relations,  to  whose  authority  the  mischief  is 
owing,  be  fond  of  revealing  that  to  the  public,  which  is  grief  to 
them  in  private.* 

Fortunately  for  the  public,  several  of  the  mishaps 
occurred  in  "  good  society,"  and  were  too  conspicuous  to 
be  hushed  up  or  denied.  Miss  Rigby  died  eight  weeks 
after  inoculation. "  miserably  disordered  by  the  operation." 
A  son  of  the  Duke  of  Bridgewater  and  a  son  of  the  Earl 
of  Sunderland  likewise  perished ;  and  a  servant  of  Lord 
Bathurst  died  of  confluent  smallpox  "consequent  on 
engraftment."  Such  incidents  struck  terror  everywhere, 
and  caused  wise  and  timid  alike  to  face  the  ills  they  knew 
rather  than  risk  certain  peril  for  uncertain  advantage. 

Maitland  returned  to  Scotland,  his  native  country,  in 
1726,  and,  going  among  his  relations  in  Aberdeenshire, 
showed  off  his  skill  by  inoculating  six  children.  One  of 
them,  Adam,  son  of  William  Urquhart  of  Melclrum,  aged 
18  months,  sickened  on  the  seventh,  and  died  on  the 
eighth  day.  There  was  a  great  outcry,  and  Maitland 
tried  to  excuse  himself  by  asserting  that  Adam  was 
afflicted  with  hydrocephalus,  which  had  been  improperly 
concealed  from  him.  Anyhow,  the  Aberdeenshire  folk 
were  satisfied  with  their  experience,  and  recommended 
"  Charlie  Maitland  to  keep  his  new-fangled  remedy  for 
the  English  in  future."  He  was  more  fortunate  in  the 
west  of  Scotland,  where  he  "  inoculated  four  children  of 
a  noble  family,"  who  escaped  alive.  The  Scots,  however, 
were  deaf  to  his  persuasions,  and  he  made  no  headway 
among  them.  At  a  later  date,  1733,  inoculation  began 
to  be  practised  in  and  about  Dumfries,  and  occasionally 
elsewhere. 

In  Ireland  little  more  was  effected  than  in  Scotland. 
It  was  said  that  25  inoculations  took  place  between  1723 
and  1728  with  3  fatalities.  Dr.  Bryan  Robinson  inoculated 
five  children  in  Dublin  in  1725,  and  was  the  death  of  two 
of  them.f 

Inoculation  met  with  faint  acceptance  on  the  Conti- 
nent. Maitland  went  over  to  Hanover  in  1724  and 

*  Massey's  Remarks,  p.  18.  t  Scheuchzer  and  Massey. 


COLLAPSE  OF  INOCULATION.  35 

inoculated  Prince  Frederick  and  eight  children  of  Baron 
de  Schulenberg.  In  France  the  practice  had  been  discussed 
by  Dr.  Boyer  so  far  back  as  1717  ;  and  in  1723  the  English 
experiments  were  recounted  in  Paris  with  much  en- 
thusiasm by  Dr.  de  la  Coste,  evoking  a  declaration  from 
the  College  of  Physicians,  "  that  for  the  benefit  of  the 
public,  it  was  lawful  to  make  trials  of  inoculation."  A 
commencement  was  about  to  be  made  in  the  hospitals 
under  the  sanction  of  the  Regent,  the  Duke  of  Orleans, 
when  his  death  put  a  stop  to  the  design.  Soon  after  Dr. 
Hecquet  published  Raisons  de  Doute  contre  I' Inoculation, 
which,  coupled  with  bad  reports  from  England,  made  an 
end  of  the  project. 

If  a  London  journalist  had  been  called  upon  in  1728 
to  report  upon  Inoculation,  he  might  have  written  as 
follows — 

Seven  years  ago  the  practice  was  introduced  to  this 
country  under  powerful  auspices.  It  was  confidently 
averred  that  anyone  might  have  his  blood  infected  with 
the  virus  of  smallpox,  that  a  trifling  ailment  would  ensue, 
and  that  thenceforward  he  would  be  secure  from  small- 
pox in  the  natural  form.  Experience  rapidly  belied 
these  promises.  The  trifling  ailment  proved,  in  many 
cases,  a  serious  ailment — so  serious  that  physicians  tried 
to  anticipate  and  mitigate  its  severity  by  a  preliminary 
regimen  of  bleeding,  purging  and  vomiting.  So  exhaust- 
ing and  hazardous  is  the  whole  operation,  that  only  sound 
and  vigorous  constitutions  are  considered  fit  for  it ;  and 
the  delicate  and  feeble,  who  require  protection  most,  are 
advised  to  submit  themselves  as  of  old  to  the  ordinary 
course  of  nature.  Moreover,  the  induced  smallpox  is 
occasionally  as  severe  as  the  spontaneous ;  the  pustules 
are  multitudinous,  and  sometimes  confluent,  with  death 
for  the  issue.  Fear  may  exaggerate  the  risks  of  inocula- 
tion, but  more  are  believed  to  have  perished  than  the 
inoculators  are  willing  to  confess.  Again,  many  are  not 
susceptible  of  inoculation,  and  though  the  infection  fails 
to  operate  in  their  blood  as  desired,  they  do  not  always 
escape  injury :  they  find  their  health  disordered — are 


36  VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 

rendered  sickly  and  uncomfortable.  Worst  of  all,  what 
none  at  first  reckoned  on,  the  artificial  smallpox  turns  out 
to  be  infectious,  and  begets  natural  smallpox  in  those  who 
are  with  the  inoculated.  Thus,  the  very  means  taken  to 
limit  the  disease  become  a  cause  of  its  extension.  Small- 
pox was  more  than  usually  prevalent  in  Hertford  in 
1721,  and  in  London  in  1724,  and  there  was  fair  reason 
to  conjecture  that  it  was  extensively  disseminated  by 
inoculation.  Lastly,  it  is  doubtful  whether  even  success- 
ful inoculation  protects  from  subsequent  smallpox ;  for  it 
is  maintained  that  some  of  the  inoculated  have  already 
fallen  victims  to  the  natural  disorder.  In  short,  the 
preventive  appears  to  have  so  many  drawbacks  that  it  is 
questionable  whether  it  is  not  worse  than  the  malady ; 
and  it  is  probable  that  in  a  year  or  two  it  will  pass  into 
forgetfulness  in  common  with  many  other  remedies  as 
highly  extolled  on  early  and  imperfect  acquaintance. 

So  much  might  have  been  stated  and  prognosticated  in 
1728  :  how  the  prognostic  failed  to  be  verified  remains  to 
be  told. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

KEVIVAL   OF  INOCULATION. 

THE  practice  of  inoculation,  thus  discredited,  revived, 
and  not  only  revived,  but  prevailed.  The  revival  was 
gradual,  and  may  be  said  to  have  acquired  definition 
about  1748,  under  the  powerful  approval  of  Dr.  Mead. 
In  the  score  of  years  from  1728  to  1748,  it  is  not  to  be 
imagined  that  the  practice  was  abandoned :  there  were 
always  a  few  repeating  the  attempt  to  have  smallpox 
without  the  penalties  of  smallpox,  but  success  was  not 
conspicuous  or  encouraging.  Inoculation  was  introduced 
to  a  generation  specially  disposed  to  receive  it;  and  it 
was  only  allowed  to  slip  for  a  time  under  the  compulsion 
of  manifest  disaster.  Perhaps  there  never  was  a  people 
with  such  a  taste  for  dodges  in  favour  of  health  as  the 
English  of  last  century :  the  common  intelligence  was 


REVIVAL  OF  INOCULATION.  37 

invested  in  quackery.  Even  Wesley  found  time  to 
dabble  in  medicine,  and  to  compile  a  volume  of  pre- 
scriptions for  his  followers,  entitled  Primitive  Physic — 
a  piquant  mixture  of  sense  with  absurdity  and  credulity. 
Our  forefathers  had  no  clear  conception  of  the  connection 
of  physical  well-being  with  physical  well-doing,  and  many 
of  the  essential  conditions  of  health  were  unknown  to 
them.  Their  physical  afflictions  were  regarded  as  mys- 
terious dispensations  to  be  endured  with  resignation  or 
frustrated  with  medicines.  The  same  attitude  of  mind 
is  far  from  uncommon  at  the  present  day,  and  many  will 
recollect  how,  ere  sanitary  science  attained  repute,  it  was 
considered  profane  to  assert  that  typhus  was  subject  to 
control,  and  that  cholera  might  be  suppressed ;  whilst  a 
drug  to  subdue  either  w^ould  be  heard  of  with  grati- 
tude. Superstition  has  rarely  had  any  objection  to  the 
apothecary. 

An  incident  passed  over  in  histories,  although  far  more 
inwardly  characteristic  of  the  mind  of  the  18th  century 
than  a  multitude  of  the  superficialities  wherewith  their 
pages  are  cumbered,  is  that  of  Joanna  Stephens  and  her 
remedies  for  the  stone.  Her  cures  were  so  remarkable 
and  (on  evidence)  so  indisputable,  that  a  general  demand 
arose  for  the  revelation  of  her  secret  for  the  public 
benefit.  This  revelation  Mrs.  Stephens  agreed  to  make 
on  receipt  of  £5000  as  compensation ;  and  a  subscription 
was  started,  to  which  Fellows  of  the  Royal  Society, 
physicians,  noblemen,  bishops,  ladies,  and  kindly  folk  of 
all  orders  set  their  names.  Such,  however,  was  the 
unanimity  and  anxiety  to  possess  the  Stephens  secret, 
that  it  was  pronounced  a  national  concern,  and  Parlia- 
ment was  invoked  to  supply  the  requisite  funds ;  whereon 
an  Act  was  passed  "for  providing  a  reward  to  Joanna 
Stephens  upon  a  proper  discovery  to  be  made  by  her  of 
the  medicines  prepared  by  her  for  the  cure  of  the  stone." 
The  discovery  was  duly  disclosed  to  appointed  trustees, 
one  of  whom  was  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and  the 
£5000  was  paid  over  in  1739 ;  and  here  we  have  the 
heads  of  the  precious  revelation — 


VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 

My  medicines  are  a  Powder,  a  Decoction,  and  a  Pill. 

The  Powder  consists  of  egg-shells  and  snails,  both  calcined. 

The  Decoction  is  made  by  boiling  camomile,  fennel,  parsley, 
and  burdock  leaves  (together  with  a  ball,  which  consists  of  soap, 
swine's  cresses  burnt  to  a  blackness,  and  honey)  in  water. 

The  Pills  consist  of  snails  calcined,  wild  carrot  seeds,  burdock 
seeds,  ashen  keys,  hips  and  hawes,  all  burnt  to  a  blackness,  soap 
and  honey. 

JOANNA  STEPHENS. 

16th  June,  1739. 

The  public  were  apparently  satisfied  with  the  pur- 
chase, but  with  the  usual  levity  of  credulity  forgot  Mrs. 
Stephens  and  her  marvellous  cures  in  the  pursuit  of 
fresh  nostrums.  Fashions  in  medicine  are  on  a  par  with 
fashions  in  dress,  and  have  only  occasional  reference  to 
the  permanence  and  veracity  of  nature. 

The  revival  of  inoculation  in  England  was  stimulated 
by  reports  from  abroad.  For  instance,  in  the  Gentle- 
marts  Magazine  it  was  stated  that  in  1737  there  were 
inoculated  in  Philadelphia — 

Men  and  Women, 32 

Children  under  twelve, 64 

Negroes,         .  32 

and  that  out  of  the  128  only  one  Negro  died.     Again, 
in  the  same  magazine  for  1738  we  read — 

In  Barbados  in  March  last  there  were  upwards  of  3000  persons 
down  in  the  smallpox,  where  inoculation  is  practised  with  great 
success. 

Such  reports,  whilst  secure  from  examination,  were 
none  the  less  effective  over  the  public  imagination. 
There  was  a  report  published  by  Dr.  Mead  in  1747, 
which  derived  great  credit  from  his  endorsement,  and 
which  continues  to  be  cited  to  the  present  day  as  proof 
for  inoculation,  but  which  is  a  model  of  convenient  and 
circumstantial  vagueness  worthy  of  Defoe.  Thus  Mead's 
story  runs — 

The  following  relation  was  communicated  to  me  by  a  gentleman 
of  great  credit.  He  was  a  merchant  at  St.  Christopher's  in  the 
West  Indies,  and  in  the  making  of  sugar  employed  a  great  number 
of  slaves.  In  one  year,  wlien  the  smallpox  raged  with  more  than 


REVIVAL  OF  INOCULATION.  39 

ordinary  violence  in  the  neighbouring  islands,  with  his  own  hands 
he  inoculated  three  hundred  of  them,  from  five  to  sixty  years  of 
age,  with  such  success,  that  not  one  of  them  died,  though  most  of 
them  were  negroes.  And  whereas  all  the  Americans  suffer  this 
distemper  in  a  most  terrible  manner,  yet  experience  shows,  that  it 
is  much  more  dangerous  when  it  attacks  the  natives  of  Africa.* 

Mead  held  positions  which  later  and  more  exact  in- 
quiry rendered  untenable.  He  would  not  allow  that  the 
pus  of  smallpox  could  communicate  any  disease  but 
smallpox,  if  taken  from  a  proper  subject — a  condition 
that  required  supernatural  assistance  to  fulfil.  He  main- 
tained that  inoculation  generated  true  smallpox,  and  that 
as  no  one  could  have  smallpox  twice,  therefore  no  one 
could  have  smallpox  after  inoculation,  and  that  reports 
to  the  contrary  were  not  credible.  It  now  goes  without 
saying  that  in  this  contention  Mead  was  at  fault,  but  at 
the  time  his  confidence  was  not  inexcusable ;  and  whilst 
defending  and  recommending  inoculation,  he  made  ad- 
missions which  fully  justified  those  who  resisted  and 
condemned  his  counsels.  Let  us  not  forget  that  the 
following  passage  was  published  in  1747,  and  was  the 
fruit  of  six-and-twenty  years  of  experience  in  the  best 
London  practice.  Thus  Mead  wrote — 

It  ought  not  to  be  omitted,  that  boils  and  swellings  under  the 
ears  and  in  the  arm-pits  arise  more  frequently  after  the  distemper 
procured  by  art  than  after  that  which  comes  of  its  own  accord ;  for 
this  reason,  as  I  suppose,  that  the  venomous  matter  is  pushed  for- 
ward with  less  force,  which  disadvantages  Nature  makes  amends 
for  in  this  way. 

Therefore  all  possible  means  are  to  be  used  to  ripen  such  tumours 
of  whatever  kind  they  are  :  if  this  cannot  be  done,  they  must  be 
opened  by  incision ;  and  when  all  the  matter  is  drawn  out,  the 
body  must  be  purged  by  proper  medicines,  which  are  to  be  oftener 
repeated  in  this  than  in  the  natural  disease,  f 

How  just  are  the  judgments  of  Divine  Order  !  These 
boils,  swellings,  and  tumours,  were  the  sequences  of  the 
violated  harmony  of  the  body — of  the  faithless  antici- 
pation, the  meddling  and  muddling  with  its  processes. 

*  Medical  Works  of  Dr.  Mead,  Vol.  ii.  p.  146.    Edinburgh  ed.,  1765. 
t  Ibid.  p.  149. 


40  VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 

An  extensive  series  of  inoculations  took  place  in 
1742-45  in  the  south  of  England.  Smallpox  was  preva- 
lent in  Winchester  and  adjacent  towns,  and  Dr.  Langrish 
operated  freely  on  whoever  resorted  to  him.  In  Ports- 
mouth, Chichester,  Guildford,  Petersfield,  and  Winchester, 
it  was  said  that  at  least  2,000  were  poxed,  and  that  only 
two  pregnant  women  perished,  who,  as  usual, "  were  inocu- 
lated contrary  to  the  advice  of  their  physician."  The  ill 
results,  wrote  Bishop  Macldox,  "were  only  such  as  might 
reasonably  be  supposed  to  have  been  worse  had  those 
operated  on  had  smallpox  in  the  natural  way" — such 
being  the  euphemism  wherewith  boils,  tumours,  and 
other  sequelae  were  accounted  for. 

The  reviving  favour  for  inoculation  was  indicated  in 
this  paragraph  from  the  newspapers  of  13th  April,  in 
1744— 

Fourteen  children,  three  years  old,  having  been  inoculated  for 
the  smallpox  in  the  Foundling  Hospital,  Hatton  Garden,  all  with 
good  success,  the  Governors  have  resolved  to  have  all  their  children 
inoculated  at  the  same  age. 

An  important  movement  was  made  in  1746  with  the 
opening  of  a  Smallpox  Hospital  in  Cold  Bath  Fields  at 
which  "the  benefit  of  inoculation"  was  offered  to  the 
poor.  At  first  those  who  applied  were  taken  into  the 
house,  and  nursed  through  their  self-inflicted  illness,  but 
the  proximity  of  the  veritable  smallpox,  the  regimen, 
and  the  seclusion  were  sufficient  to  deter  applicants : 
those,  however,  who  have  a  hobby  to  ride  grow  reckless 
in  presence  of  obstacles,  and  by-and-by  inoculation  was 
offered  to  all  comers,  who  were  dismissed  to  recover  and 
diffuse  infection  in  their  own  homes. 

With  the  revival  of  inoculation  there  was  a  revival  of 
the  controversy  as  to  its  lawfulness  theologically.  Dr. 
Isaac  Maddox,  Bishop  of  Worcester,  preached  a  sermon 
on  behalf  of  the  Smallpox  Hospital  in  St.  Andrew's, 
Holborn,  on  5th  March,  1752,*  which  excited  consider- 


*  A  Sermon  before  the  Governors  of  the  Smallpox  Hospital.     Isaiah 
Iviii.  7.     London,  1752;  second  ed.,  1753. 


REVIVAL  OF  INOCULATION.  41 

able  attention.  He  showed  the  necessity  for  such  an 
hospital  for  the  poor  and  forsaken  of  the  great  city — a 
necessity  incontestable.  He  mentioned  (and  the  remark 
supplies  a  curious  note  on  the  hygiene  of  the  time)  that 
ventilators  were  to  be  introduced,  and  it  was  ex- 
pected that  the  access  of  fresh  air  might  benefit  the 
patients.  The  return  of  the  Hospital  for  1752  showed 
344  admissions,  with  262  recoveries,  and  82  deaths — a 
proportion  that  does  not  contrast  disadvantageous!^  with 
19th  century  hospitals,  fortified  with  sanitary  appliances. 
During  the  same  year  112  inoculations  were  effected  at 
the  Hospital.  The  Bishop  had  been  assured  by  three 
eminent  surgeons  that  they  had  inoculated  1500  persons 
with  only  3  fatalities,  one  of  them  (Sergeant  Ranby) 
having  accomplished  one  thousand  without  a  mishap. 
The  practice  was  without  doubt  lawful,  for  it  averted  a 
dangerous  disease,  and  some  risk  was  inseparable  from 
all  methods  of  cure.  The  practice  had  already  done 
much  to  lessen  smallpox,  and,  as  it  became  commoner,  it 
would  do  more.  The  result  of  the  sermon  was  a  sub- 
scription of  £809  for  the  charity  at  the  subsequent 
dinner  in  the  Drapers'  Hall. 

The  Bishop  was  singularly  at  fault  in  his  ascription  of 
diminished  mortality  to  inoculation,  for,  in  1752,  smallpox 
was  more  than  unusually  rife  in  the  Metropolis,  and  its 
prevalence  was  not  unreasonably  attributed  to  infection 
from  the  inoculated.  In  1751  the  deaths  from  smallpox 
in  London  were  998;  they  rose  to  3538  in  1752;  declined 
to  774  in  1753;  and  rose  to  2359  in  1754. 

Dr.  Doddridge  lent  his  powerful  influence  in  favour 
of  inoculation;  and,  considering  the  unqualified  asser- 
tions of  medical  men  as  to  its  benefits  and  harmlessness, 
it  cannot  be  said  he  was  blameworthy.  The  audacious 
assurance  with  which  many  of  them  bore  down  opposi- 
tion overcame  the  simple-minded,  who  argued  as  if  the 
world  were  constituted  after  the  pattern  of  their  own 
innocent  hearts.  That  smallpox  frequently  followed 
inoculation  is  now  known  beyond  dispute,  and  yet  Dr. 
Kirkpatrick  wrote — 


42  VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 

I  have  heard  myself  a  great  many  rumours  of  the  inoculated 
being  naturally  infected  afterwards,  which  upon  examination 
proved  just  as  many  lies.* 

How  could  women  and  divines  resist  such  evidence  ? 

A  voluble  antagonist  of  inoculation  was  the  Rev. 
Theodore  Delafaye  of  Canterbury.  He  preached  a  ser- 
mon in  that  city  on  the  3rd  of  June,  1753,  from  the 
text,  "  Let  us  do  evil  that  good  may  come  "  (Rom.  iii.  8), 
and  published  it  under  the  title  of  Inoculation  an  Inde- 
fensible Practice.  He  was  in  turn  attacked  by  the 
inoculators,  and  in  1754  issued  A  Vindication  of  200 
pages,  in  which  he  returned  more  than  he  received  with 
vigour  rather  than  discretion.  His  conclusion  was — 

Inoculation  I  maintain  to  be,  in  a  religious  and  moral  view,  a 
self- destructive,  inhuman,  and  impious  machination,  and  in  a  phy- 
sical one  an  unreasonable,  unnatural,  unlawful,  most  hazardous, 
ineffectual,  fruitless,  uncertain,  unnecessary  device ;  in  a  word,  a 
practice  which  nature  recoils  at,  which  reason  opposes,  and  which 
religion  condemns. 

We  sometimes  read  that  inoculation  was  denounced 
as  Atheism,  and  we  are  expected  to  reprobate  or  to 
smile  at  the  bigotry ;  and,  whilst  we  may  not  approve 
of  the  stigma,  we  may  at  the  same  time  recognise  the 
honest  sense  in  which  it  might  be  affixed.  Some  who 
spoke  of  inoculation  as  Atheistic  felt  more  vividly 
than  they  could  otherwise  describe,  that  it  was  an  in- 
fraction of  the  deeper  sanctity  of  Nature,  where  man's 
hand  cannot  enter  and  prosper,  and  that  those  who  made 
the  attempt  could  have  no  proper  sense  of  Him  in  whom 
they  lived,  and  moved,  and  had  their  being.  Moreover, 
if  we  are  to  admit  that  they  who  thus  expressed  them- 
selves are  blameable  for  excessive  vehemence,  what  are 
we  to  say  of  the  more  numerous  party  who  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  pronounce  inoculation  a  discovery  effected  in  the 
human  mind  by  God  himself  ?  If  it  was  reasonable  to 
speak  of  the  practice  as  Theistic,  why  should  it  be 
fanatical  to  assert  the  -contrary,  and  maintain  that  it 
involved  a  negation  of  Divine  Providence  ?  Dr.  Kirk- 

*  An  Analysis  of  Inoculation,  2nd  eel.  1761,  p.  145. 


REVIVAL  OF  INOCULATION.  43 

patrick,  with  the  sycophancy  which  was  the  custom  of 
his  age,  praised  George  II.  for  "the  benevolent,  and  even 
celestial  disposition,"  which  induced  him  to  patronise 
"  the  wonderful  and  probably  Heaven-descended  practice 
of  inoculation ; "  and  extolled  "  its  equal  simplicity  and 
success"  as  demonstrating  "to  a  reflective  mind  the 
goodness  of  Providence  in  making  what  may  be  so  often 
necessary,  so  easily  accomplished."  *  It  would  not  be 
difficult  to  cite  scores  of  confessions  of  gratitude  to  .God 
for  inoculation,  but  to  what  purpose  ? 

What  we  think  good  we  necessarily  ascribe  to  God ; 
and  we  do  well ;  but  much  that  we  think  good  is  other- 
wise, or  is  only  partially  good ;  and  what  then  ?  Why, 
we  are  undeceived  and  corrected  by  experience.  We  put 
our  notion  of  what  is  good  to  the  test  of  practice,  and 
God  answers  us  in  the  event — justifies,  amends,  or  con- 
founds us.  Thus  with  inoculation.  It  was  fair  that 
those  who  thought  it  good  should  refer  it  to  God,  and 
thank  him  for  it;  and  it  was  equally  fair  that  those  who 
thought  it  bad  should  say  it  was  none  of  his — that  it  was 
at  variance  with  his  order,  and  a  discredit  to  the  intelli- 
gence of  those  who  imputed  it  to  Him.  How  was  the 
issue  to  be  determined  ?  Only  by  God  himself.  And  how 
would  He  speak  ?  In  the  results  of  experience  wherein 
his  will  would  become  manifest  beyond  equivocation. 

In  1754  inoculation  obtained  full  recognition  from  the 
London  College  of  Physicians.  It  was  declared  "that 
experience  had  refuted  the  arguments  urged  against  the 
practice ;  that  it  was  now  more  extensively  employed  in 
England  than  ever ;  and  that  it  was  highly  beneficial  to 
mankind."  The  fence  of  hesitation  was  thrown  down, 
and  to  be  inoculated  became  the  distinction  of  all  who 
wished  to  be  numbered  with  the  enlightened  and  prudent. 
That  the  Circassians  were  famous  for  their  beauty,  and 
that  they  practised  inoculation,  was  a  staple  argument, 
and  an  irresistible,  with  a  multitude  of  Englishwomen. 
Opposition  was  chiefly  confined  to  the  lower  orders,  who 

*  Analysis  of  Inoculation,  p.  348. 


44  VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 

objected  to  have  the  inoculated  at  large  among  them, 
and  in  some  places  threatened  to  demolish  the  houses 
where  inoculation  was  performed.*  Occasionally  a  medi- 
cal practitioner  acquired  reputation  as  an  inoculator, 
and  was  resorted  to  by  patients  from  a  distance,  and 
his  operations  were  not  regarded  with  much  favour  by 
his  neighbours.  Thus  the  physicians  and  surgeons  of 
Newbury,  Berks,  were  compelled  by  their  townsmen  to 
promise  to  inoculate  no  one  who  had  not  resided  in  New- 
bury  at  least  two  years. 

The  new  practice  created  much  business,  and  its  dis- 
tribution excited  some  jealousy.  Physicians  complained 
that  surgeons  inoculated  without  their  assistance,  and  sur- 
geons that  apothecaries  did  so  likewise.  Dr.  Kirkpatrick 
laid  down  the  rule  that  every  rightly  conducted  inocu- 
lation involved  the  employment  of  physician,  surgeon, 
and  apothecary — the  physician  to  prepare  and  prescribe 
for  the  patient,  the  surgeon  to  cut,  infuse,  and  dress, 
and  the  apothecary  to  make  up  the  medicines.  Some, 
however,  dispensed  with  all  three,  and  effected  their 
own  inoculations.  A  boy  poxed  fourteen  of  his  school- 
fellows in  sport,  and  amateur  inoculators,  male  and  female, 
multiplied.  As  an  example  of  amateur  procedure,  Dr. 
Kirkpatrick  relates  that  a  gentleman  of  Kent  sent  his  ser- 
vant, Silvanus,  a  young  man,  to  Mrs.  Chapman,  at  Heath- 
field,  to  be  inoculated.  He  had  to  ride  thirteen  miles,  and 
arrived  hot  and  fatigued  at  the  house  of  the  inoculatrix. 
As  he  had  taken  his  preparatory  physic  at  his  master's, 
Mrs.  Chapman  desired  him  to  get  ready  at  once  for  the 
operation,  which  he  begged  her  to  defer  as  he  was  in  such 
a  heat.  She  replied  that  he  must  be  inoculated  that  very 
day,  Tuesday,  or  remain  until  the  following  week,  for 
Tuesday  was  her  lucky  day.  The  poor  fellow  allowed 
himself  to  be  persuaded,  and  was  then  and  there  inocu- 
lated :  severe  smallpox  ensued,  and  he  died.  •[• 

Thus  was  inoculation  revived  and  established,  and 
smallpox  with  it — established  and  diffused. 

*  Gentleman's  Magazine,  March,  1753. 

t  Kirkpatrick's  Analysis  of  Inoculation,  p.  359. 


TRIUMPH  OF  INOCULATION.  45 


CHAPTER  VII. 

TRIUMPH   OF   INOCULATION. 

IT  having  come  to  pass,  according  to  the  boast  of  Dr. 
Kirkpatrick,  that  inoculation  was  regarded  as  "  the  most 
salutary  practice  ever  discovered  for  restraining  a  very 
loathsome  and  destroying  disorder,  which  it  had  nearly 
expunged  from  the  catalogue  of  mortal  diseases,"  it  was 
the  aim  of  physicians  and  patients  to  reduce  the  trouble 
and  hazard  of  the  operation  to  the  lowest  terms  possible. 
In  the  words  of  Dr.  Jenner,  "  There  was  bleeding  till  the 
blood  was  thin,  purging  till  the  body  was  wasted  to  a 
skeleton,  and  starving  on  vegetable  diet  to  keep  it  so;" 
and  practitioners  who  promised  to  mitigate  these  rigours, 
placed  themselves  in  the  line  of  popularity  and  prosperity. 
Among  distinguished  easy  inoculators  was  a  family 
named  Button — "the  Buttons"  being  a  familiar  name  a 
century  ago.  Dr.  Robert  Sutton  practised  surgery  and 
pharmacy  at  Debenham,  in  Suffolk,  and  went  into  in- 
oculation with  such  energy  that  between  1757  and  1767 
he  operated  on  2514  patients.  His  son,  Robert,  set  up  as 
inoculator  at  Bury  St.  Edmunds,  where  he  did  a  large 
business ;  but  a  second  son,  Daniel,  was  the  genius  of  the 
household.  He  had  been  acting  as  assistant  to  Mr.  Bum- 
stead  at  Oxford,  and  returned  to  his  father  in  1763 
enthusiastic  over  a  new  plan  of  inoculation  whereby  the 
time  of  preparation  was  to  be  shortened,  whilst  the 
patients  were  to  live  in  the  open  air.  Old  Sutton 
showed  no  favour  for  the  projected  innovation,  whereon 
Daniel  opened  an  inoculating  house  on  his  own  account 
at  Ingatestone,  in  Essex,  advertising  himself  as  inoculator 
on  a  new,  safe,  and  sure  method.  The  speculation 
answered.  In  1764  he  took  2000  guineas,  and  in  1765 
his  receipts  were  £6300.  His  fame  spread  throughout 
the  country,  and  so  many  resorted  to  him  that  lodgings 
were  scarcely  to  be  had  in  and  around  Ingatestone.  His 
practice  in  Kent  was  also  extensive,  and  he  was  obliged 
to  employ  assistants.  To  crown  his  enterprise,  he  kept 


45  VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 

a  parson — the  Rev.  Robert  Houlton,  to  puff  his  skill  and 
success.  According  to  Houlton,  the  business  of  Daniel 
Sutton  during  three  years  was  as  follows — 

Inoculated  in  1764,      .         .         .     1629 

1765,  .         .         .     4347 

1766,  .         .         .     7816 

13,792 

to  which  number  was  added  6000  inoculated  by  Button's 
assistants,  making  a  total  of  20,000,  without,  said  Houlton, 
a  single  death.* 

Sutton  was  denounced  as  a  quack,  and  if  to  reserve 
as  one's  own,  and  to  traffic  in  what  is  proclaimed  to  be 
for  the  common  advantage  of  mankind,  constitutes  a 
quack,  Sutton  was  one.  Nevertheless,  he  was  successful, 
and  his  success  begot  so  much  jealousy  that  he  was 
indicted  at  the  Chelmsford  quarter  sessions,  but  acquitted 
with  the  thanks  of  the  grand  j  ury  for  the  lesson  he  had 
taught  the  Faculty. 

Much  ingenuity  was  exercised  in  ferreting  out  Sutton's 
secret.  His  secret,  so  far  as  it  was  anything,  was  an 
open  one;  and  supposing  it  necessary  to  infect  men's 
blood  with  variolous  pus,  and  then  to  operate  for  their 
recovery,  there  would  be  much  to  say  for  Sutton's  pro- 
cedure. His  patients  were  obliged  to  go  through  a  strict 
preparatory  regimen  for  a  fortnight,  during  which  every 
kind  of  animal  food,  with  the  exception  of  milk,  and  all 
fermented  liquors  and  spices  were  forbidden.  Fruit  of 
all  sorts  was  allowed,  unless  on  days  when  purges  were 
taken.  In  the  course  of  a  fortnight  a  powder  was  thrice 
administered  at  bed-time,  and  a  dose  of  salts  on  the 
succeeding  morning.  When  the  days  of  preparation 
were  accomplished,  the  patient  was  taken  to  the  inoculat- 
ing house,  where  in  the  public  room  was  found  an  array 
of  people  in  various  stages  of  smallpox.  From  one  of 
these  sufferers,  the  operator  selected  a  pustule  to  his 
mind,  opened  it  with  his  lancet,  and,  turning  to  the 

*  Sermon  preached  at  Ingatestone,  12th  October,  1766,  in  defence  of 
Inoculation,  with  App.  on  the  present  state  of  Inoculation.  Lond.,  1767. 


TRIUMPH  OF  INOCULATION.  47 

patient  to  be  poxed,  raised  the  cuticle  on  the  outer  part 
of  his  arm  with  the  moist  lancet,  and  pressed  it  down 
with  his  finger.  This  was  the  entire  operation :  no 
plaster  or  bandage  was  applied :  and  from  that  moment 
the  patient  was  pronounced  proof  against  smallpox,  even 
if  he  should  lie  -in  bed  with  one  suffering  from  the 
disease.  Of  course  there  remained  the  variolous  affection 
to  be  dealt  with.  The  regimen  of  preparation  was  con- 
tinued unchanged,  and  a  pill  was  taken  nightly  until  the 
fever  came  on.  None  were  allowed  to  rest  in  bed,  except 
for  sleep,  but  had  to  walk  abroad  and  enjoy  fresh  air, 
even  in  winter  weather.  If  a  patient  was  too  sick  to  go 
alone,  he  was  supported  by  attendants ;  and  when  the 
fever  was  at  its  height,  he  was  encouraged  to  drink 
copiously  of  cold  water. 

Much  more  was  attributed  to  Button's  pills  and  pow- 
ders than  to  his  regimen,  and  these  were  no  more  than 
preparations  of  antimony  and  mercury,  with  which 
practitioners  of  all  orders  were  only  too  familiar.  Sutton, 
however,  contrived  to  maintain  his  mystery  until  he  had 
no  longer  occasion  for  it,  and  lived  to  recognise  a  successor 
in  Jenner.  He  removed  to  London  in  1767  in  hope  of 
enlarging  his  income,  but  like  many  other  provincial 
celebrities,  discovered  that  he  had  better  have  remained 
where  he  shone  without  rivals  and  detractors. 

The  Sutton  regimen,  so  far  as  it  might  be  described  as 
"  cool,"  came  into  general  favour,  whilst  what  was  called 
the  hot  regimen  of  warm  rooms,  bed,  and  cordials  was 
correspondingly  discredited.  Contrasting  the  two  me- 
thods, Sir  George  Baker,  writing  in  1771,  observed — 

I  found  that  in  the  counties  of  Norfolk,  Suffolk,  and  Essex, 
many  thousands  of  people  of  all  ages  and  constitutions,  and  some 
of  them  with  every  apparent  disadvantage,  had  been  inoculated 
with  general  good  success ;  whereas  at  Blandford,  in  Dorset,  out 
of  384  who  were  inoculated,  13  actually  died,  and  many  others 
narrowly  escaped  with  their  lives  from  confluent  smallpox.* 

A  famous  inoculator  was  Dr.  Thomas  Dimsdale  of 
Hertford,  a  Quaker  of  easy  principles.  He  published  in 

*  Medical  Transactions)  vol.  ii.  art.  xix. 


48  '  VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 

1766  a  treatise  entitled  The  Present  Method  of  Inoculat- 
ing for  the  Smallpox — an  exposition  of  the  most  approved 
practice  of  the  time,  which,  by  one  of  those  curious 
felicities  of  circumstance,  conferred  on  him  a  European 
reputation ;  and  in  1781,  Tracts  on  Inoculation — a  re- 
cord of  his  opinions  and  adventures  at  home  and  abroad. 

Dimsdale  desired  to  universalise  inoculation,  but  with 
circumspection.  He  recommended  that  the  inhabitants 
of  a  suitable  district  should  be  dealt  with  as  a  whole  and 
at  once.  That  the  names  of  all  should  be  taken,  and  on 
a  certain  day  that  everyone,  who  had  not  had  smallpox, 
should  be  inoculated.  That  the  district  should  then 
continue  in  quarantine  for  about  three  weeks,  at  the  end 
of  which  the  danger  and  the  fear  of  smallpox  would 
cease,  until  an  unpolluted  generation  should  afresh 
accumulate.  The  project  was  not  mere  dreaming.  Dims- 
dale was  a  man  of  influence  and  energy,  and  effected 
several  complete  inoculations  of  villages  and  parishes  in 
Hertfordshire  according  to  his  plan.  In  later  years,  he 
combined  banking  with  medicine,  and  the  firm  of  Dims- 
dale, Fowler,  and  Co.  of  Cornhill  originated  with  him  and 
perpetuates  his  name. 

Dimsdale's  practice  lay  chiefly  among  the  upper  classes, 
to  whom  he  made  matters  very  comfortable.  As  he 
wrote — 

I  do  not  enjoin  any  restriction  in  respect  to  diet,  nor  direct  any 
medicines  to  be  taken  before  the  time  of  operation  by  such  as 
appear  to  be  in  a  proper  state  of  health." 

He  was  satisfied  with  administering  a  powder  on  the 
evening  of  the  day  on  which  a  patient  was  inoculated, 
consisting  of  calomel,  tartar  emetic,  and  crabs'  claws. 

Whilst  labouring  to  popularise  inoculation,  Dimsdale 
was  strongly  opposed  to  the  trade  therein  passing  to  un- 
authorised hands — simple,  safe,  and  salutary  though  he 
asserted  it  to  be.  Thus  he  averred — 

The  mischiefs  arising  from  the  practice  of  inoculation  by  the 
illiterate  and  ignorant  are  beyond  conception.! 

*  Tracts  on  Inoculation,  p.  126.  t  Ibid.  p.  107. 


TRIUMPH  OF  INOCULATION.  49 


How  illiteracy  should  affect  inoculation,  he  left  to 
conjecture.  He  apparently  forgot  that  the  practice  was 
derived  from  people  who  made  no  pretence  to  literature, 
and  whose  efficiency  and  success  were,  moreover,  set 
forth  as  warrant  and  encouragement  for  English  imitation. 

In  1775  a  Society  was  formed  for  General  Inoculation, 
and  an  hospital  was  opened  for  the  purpose  at  Battle 
Bridge,  on  the  site  of  what  is  now  the  Great  Northern 
Railway  station,  King's  Cross.  Dr.  Lettsom,  a  popular 
Quaker  physician,  issued  an  appeal  on  behalf  of  the 
enterprise,  and  having  invoked  Dr.  Dimsdale's  approval,  a 
lively  controversy  ensued  between  the  brethren — personal 
rather  than  profitable.  Dimsdale  disapproved  of  indis- 
criminate inoculation:  he  was  ready  to  inoculate  the 
whole  world,  but  systematically,  and  under  strict  safe- 
guards. He  pointed  out  that  whatever  might  be  the 
advantage  to  the  individual,  unless  the  inoculated  patient 
was  rigorously  secluded,  he  would  diffuse  the  disease 
from  which  he  sought  to  be  delivered,  and  that  the  price 
of  his  life  might  be  the  destruction  of  many.  Dimsdale's 
warnings  were,  however,  slightly  regarded,  and  inocula- 
tion was  pursued  with  criminal  recklessness.  As  Pascal 
observes,  of  all  the  faculties  given  to  man,  the  most 
awful  in  its  consequences  is  the  power  of  standing  amid 
a  number  of  facts,  and  seeing  such  as  we  please  to  see, 
and  being  blind  to  the  rest. 

Specially  remarkable  in  connection  with  the  smallpox 
of  last  century  was  the  exaggerated  terror  expressed  for 
it  by  professional  inoculators,  and  the  little  real  terror 
manifested  by  the  multitude,  It  was  by  no  means  the 
most  fatal  of  diseases,  nor  was  it  a  large  factor  in  the 
common  mortality.  Wherever  we  test  the  matter  by 
unbiased  contemporary  evidence,  we  find  the  outcry 
factitious:  the  dreadful  and  desolating  malady  from 
which  Jenner  delivered  his  country  is  merely  a  fiction 
continued  by  the  vaccinators  from  the  inoculators.  For 
proof  let  us  turn  to  the  evidence  of  Dr.  Alexander  Monro, 
Professor  of  Medicine  and  Anatomy  in  the  University  of 
Edinburgh.  The  Faculty  of  Medicine  in  Paris  had 
4 


50 


VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 


appointed  a  commission  to  inquire  into  the  advantages  of 
inoculation,  which  in  the  course  of  duty  applied  to  Monro, 
who  in  response  produced  and  published  in  1765  An 
Account  of  the  Inoculation  of  Smallpox  in  Scotland. 
He  reported  that  from  the  introduction  of  the  practice 
by  Maitland  in  1726,  there  had  been  5554  inoculations 
effected  in  Scotland  with  72  fatalities;  that  is  to  say 
about  140  annually  with  deaths  1  in  78,  according  to  the 
confession  of  the  inoculators  themselves.  Monro  further 
stated  that  the  practice  was  disliked  in  Scotland  as  "  a 
tempting  of  Providence,"  an  unwarrantable  risk  of  life 
for  an  uncertain  advantage.  Our  present  interest,  how- 
ever, is  in  the  statistics  of  deaths  from  smallpox  in 
Edinburgh  for  a  series  of  twenty  years  thus  adduced  by 
Monro. 


Burials 

From 

from  all 

Small 

Diseases. 

pox. 

1744. 

...1345  

...167 

1754. 

1745. 

1463  

...141 

1755. 

1746. 

1712*  

...128 

1756. 

1747. 

1200  

...  71  !  1757. 

1748. 

1286  

...167 

1758. 

1749. 

1132  

...192 

1759. 

1750. 

1038  

...  64 

1760. 

1751. 

1241  

...109 

1761. 

1752. 

1187  

...147 

1762. 

1753. 

1105  

...  70 

1763. 

12,709 

1256 

Burials 
from  all 
Diseases. 

From 
Small- 
pox. 

...1215... 

104 

...1187... 

89 

...1316... 

126 

...1267... 

113 

...1001... 

52 

...1136... 

232 

...1123... 

66 

...  903... 

6 

...1305... 

274 

...1160... 

123 

11,613  1185 

Here  we  have  a  piece  of  valid  experience  with  every 
advantage  to  the  smallpox  terrorist :  for  Edinburgh  last 
century  was  a  city  contrived  as  if  for  the  generation  and 
perpetuation  of  smallpox.  The  population  of  55,000  was 
lodged  thickly  in  flats,  in  houses  of  many  storeys,  closely 
built  in  lanes  and  courts — a  population  densely  com- 
pacted as  any  in  Europe,  with  arrangements  for  cleanli- 
ness indescribable,  at  this  day  perhaps  incredible.  Yet 
in  conditions  so  propitious  to  smallpox,  we  see  before  us 


*  Monro  accounts  for  the  excessive  mortality  of  this  year  by  the  pres- 
ence of  regiments  in  Edinburgh  after  the  suppression  of  the  rebellion 
of  1745. 


TRIUMPH  OF  INOCULATION.  51 

the  total  outcome  during  a  series  of  twenty  years ;  and 
reprehensible  as  the  result  may  appear  to  contemporary 
sanitarians,  who  hold,  and  rightly  hold,  that  all  zymotic 
diseases  are  preventible,  yet  it  affected  Monro  with  no 
anxiety  or  dismay :  nor  does  the  rate  of  mortality  of  old 
Edinburgh  contrast  unfavourably  with  that  of  the  modern 
city.  The  case  of  Edinburgh,  however,  serves  to  show 
that  in  all  cases  when  we  hear  of  the  ravages  of  smallpox 
before  Jenner  appeared  as  deliverer,  our  policy  is  to  insist 
firmly  upon  the  production  of  special  and  adequate 
evidence  :  it  is  monstrous  that  the  assertions  of  common 
quacks,  whether  inoculators  or  vaccinators,  should  pass 
into  tradition  and  be  accepted  as  unquestionable  verity. 

We  have,  moreover,  to  observe  that  the  mortality  from 
smallpox  in  Edinburgh  was  infantile  mortality :  for  as 
Monro  testified — 

The  inhabitants  of  Scotland  generally  have  the  smallpox  in  their 
infancy  or  childhood ;  very  few  adults  being  seen  in  this  disease. 
Whether  this  is  owing  to  any  particular  constitution  of  the  air,  or 
of  the  people,  or  to  the  disease  not  being  so  much  dreaded  as  to 
cause  any  to  fly  from  the  place  where  it  is,  or  to  the  great  inter- 
course which  must  be  among  the  inhabitants  of  the  towns,  of  which 
several,  nay,  many  families  enter  to  their  houses  by  one  common 
stair,  while  in  the  villages  the  peasants  are  generally  assistant  to 
their  neighbours  of  whose  family  any  is  sick,  it  is  not  now  necessary 
to  inquire. 

Not  only  were  the  habits  of  the  people  contributory  to 
the  diffusion  of  eruptive  disorders,  but  likewise  their 
food,  of  which  oatmeal  was  the  staple,  whilst  vegetables 
were  few,  fruit  rare,  and  tea  unknown.  Hence  many 
maladies  had  free  course ;  and  as  Dean  Ramsay  relates,  a 
girl  on  her  arrival  at  Mrs.  Betty  Muirheid's  boarding- 
school  in  the  Trongate,  Glasgow,  when  asked  whether 
she  had  had  smallpox,  replied,  "  Yes,  mem,  I've  had  the 
sma'pox,  the  nirls  [measles],  the  blabs  [nettle-rash],  the 
scaw  [itch],  the  kink-host  [whooping-cough],  the  fever, 
the  branks  [mumps],  and  the  worm  [toothache]." 

A  last  word  as  to  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu.  After 
a  residence  of  twenty  years  in  Italy,  she  returned  to 


52  VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 

England  to  die,  21st  August,  1762.  On  the  west  side  of 
the  north  door  in  Lichfield  Cathedral,  there  is  a  female 
figure,  in  marble,  leaning  on  an  urn  inscribed  M.  W.  M. 
The  inscription  runs — 

SACRED     TO     THE     MEMORY     OF 
THE    RIGHT    HONOURABLE 

LADY  MARY  WOETLEY  MONTAGU, 

WHO    HAPPILY   INTRODUCED,    FROM    TURKEY, 

INTO    THIS    COUNTRY, 
THE    SALUTARY   ART    OF   INOCULATING   THE    SMALLPOX. 

CONVINCED    OF   ITS    EFFICACY, 
SHE    FIRST    TRIED   IT    WITH    SUCCESS 

ON   HER   OWN    CHILDREN, 
AND    THEN    RECOMMENDED    THE    PRACTICE    OF   IT    TO 

HER   FELLOW- CITIZENS. 
THUS,     BY    HER    EXAMPLE    AND    ADVICE, 

WE    HAVE    SOFTENED    THE    VIRULENCE,    AND 
ESCAPED    THE    DANGER,    OF    THIS    MALIGNANT    DISEASE. 
TO    PERPETUATE    THE    MEMORY    OF    SUCH    BENEVOLENCE, 

AND    TO    EXPRESS    HER    GRATITUDE 
FOR   THE    BENEFIT    SHE    HERSELF    RECEIVED   FROM 

THIS   ALLEVIATING   ART, 
THIS    MONUMENT    IS   ERECTED    BY 

HENRIETTA    INGE, 

RELICT  OF  THEODORE  WILLIAM  INGE,  ESQ., 

AND    DAUGHTER   OF    SIR   JOHN   WROTTESLEY,    BART., 

IN    THE   YEAR   OF    OUR   LORD, 

MDCCLXXXIX. 

Whilst  we  do  not  resort  to  epitaphs  for  truth,  we  may 
discover  in  them  what  was  taken  for  truth,  or  what  was 
wished  to  be  taken  for  truth.  We  have  in  the  foregoing 
epitaph  the  legend  which  has  caught  the  popular  fancy, 
and  which  is  likely  to  survive  corrections  innumerable. 
It  is  the  custom  of  mankind  to  identify  a  common  move- 
ment with  some  prominent  or  picturesque  figure  in  the 
movement,  and  to  suppress  the  rest.  The  practice  is 
convenient,  but  it  taints  all  history  with  fable. 

It  may  be  said  that  the  practice  of  inoculation  met 
with  no  active  resistance  in  England  during  the  last 
thirty  years  of  last  century.  How  widely  and  deeply  it 
extended  it  would  be  difficult  to  determine.  The  pro- 


TRIUMPH  OF  INOCULATION.  53 

bability  is,  that  the  mass  of  the  population  was  untouched, 
and  that  inoculation  was  limited  to  the  upper  and  middle 
classes,  and  to  the  lower  so  far  as  they  came  under  the 
immediate  influence  of  those  above  them.  We  have, 
perhaps,  an  index  to  the  condition  of  affairs  in  Dr.  Wm. 
Buchan's  Domestic  Medicine,  first  published  in  1769, 
which  ran  through  eighteen  editions,  amounting  to 
80,000  copies,  in  the  author's  life-time.  It  is  not  uncom- 
mon to  refer  contemptuously  to  Buchan,  but  his  work 
was  the  production  of  a  man  of  vigorous  good  sense  with 
faith  in  the  good  sense  of  his  readers — a  book  creditable 
to  the  author  and  to  the  people  who  appreciated  him. 

Buchan  was  an  inoculator,  a  zealous  advocate  of  inocu- 
lation, and  earnestly  laboured  to  universalise  the  practice. 
In  the  Domestic  Medicine,  ed.  1797,  he  wrote — 

No  discovery  can  be  of  general  utility  while  the  practice  of  it  is 
kept  in  the  hands  of  a  few.  Had  Inoculation  been  practised  by  the 
same  kind  of  operators  in  our  country  as  in  the  countries  from 
which  we  derived  it,  it  had  long  ago  been  universal.  The  fears, 
the  jealousies,  the  prejudices,  and  the  opposite  interests  of  the 
Faculty  are,  and  ever  will  be,  the  most  effectual  obstacles  to  the 
progress  of  any  salutary  discovery.  Hence  it  is  that  Inoculation 
never  became  in  any  mariner  general  in  England  till  taken  up  by 
men  not  bred  to  physic. 

Consistently  with  this  opinion,  Buchan  strongly  advo- 
cated domestic  practice,  saying — 

They  know  very  little  of  the  matter,  who  impute  the  success  of 
modern  inoculators  to  any  superior  skill,  either  in  preparing  the 
patient  or  communicating  the  disease.  Some  of  them,  indeed, 
from  a  sordid  desire  of  engrossing  the  whole  practice  to  themselves, 
pretend  to  have  extraordinary  secrets  or  nostrums  for  preparing 
persons  for  inoculation,  which  never  fail  of  success.  But  this  is 
only  a  pretence  calculated  to  blind  the  ignorant  and  inattentive. 
-Common-sense  and  prudence  alone  are  sufficient  both  in  the  choice 
of  the  subject  and  management  of  the  operation.  Whoever  is 
possessed  of  these  may  perform  this  office  for  his  children  whenever 
he  finds  it  convenient,  provided  they  be  in  a  good  state  of  health. 

This  statement  is  not  the  result  of  theory,  but  of  observation. 
Though  few  physicians  have  had  more  opportunities  of  trying 
inoculation  in  all  its  different  forms,  so  little  appears  to  me  to 
depend  on  those  generally  reckoned  important  circumstances,  of 
preparing  the  body,  communicating  the  infection  by  this  or  the 


VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 


other  method,  etc.,  that,  for  several  years  past,  I  have  persuaded 
parents  and  nurses  to  perform  the  entire  operation  themselves. 

I  have  known  many  instances  of  mothers  inoculating  their  chil- 
dren, and  never  so  much  as  heard  of  one  bad  consequence. 
Common  mechanics  often,  to  my  knowledge,  perform  the  operation 
with  as  good  success  as  physicians. 

Having  described  the  ordinary  method  of  inoculation  by 
incision  with  a  lancet  dipped  in  pus,  he  goes  on  to  say  — 

If  fresh  matter  be  applied  long  enough  to  the  skin,  there  is  no 
occasion  for  any  wound  at  all.  Let  a  bit  of  thread,  about  half  an 
inch  long,  wet  with  the  matter,  be  immediately  applied  to  the  arm, 
midway  between  the  shoulder  and  the  elbow,  and  covered  with  a 
piece  of  common  sticking-plaster,  and  kept  on  for  eight  or  ten  days. 
This  will  seldom  fail  to  communicate  the  disease. 

Instead  of  multiplying  arguments  to  recommend  this  practice,  I 
shall  beg  leave  to  mention  the  case  of  my  own  son,  at  the  time  an 
only  child.  After  giving  him  two  gentle  purges,  I  ordered  the  nurse 
to  take  a  bit  of  thread  which  had  been  previously  wet  with  fresh 
matter  from  a  pock,  and  to  lay  it  upon  his  arm,  covering  it  with  a 
piece  of  sticking-plaster.  This  remained  on  six  or  seven  days,  until 
it  was  rubbed  off  by  accident.  At  the  usual  time  smallpox  made 
their  appearance,  and  were  exceedingly  favourable.  Surely  this, 
which  is  all  that  is  generally  necessary,  may  be  done  without  any 
skill  in  medicine. 

Thus  was  smallpox  made  easy  ! 

Buchan  appealed  to  the  clergy  for  co-operation  as 
inoculators  — 

The  persons  to  whom  we  would  chiefly  recommend  the  perform- 
ance of  this  operation  are  the  clergy.  Most  of  them  know  some- 
thing of  medicine.  Almost  all  of  them  bleed,  and  can  order  a 
purge,  which  are  all  the  qualifications  necessary  for  the  practice  of 
inoculation. 

And  as  propagandists  — 

No  set  of  men  have  it  so  much  in  their  power  to  render  the  prac- 
tice of  inoculation  general  as  the  clergy,  the  greatest  opposition  to 
it  still  arising  from  some  scruples  of  conscience,  which  they  alone 
can  remove.  I  would  recommend  them  not  only  to  endeavour  to 
remove  the  religious  objections  which  weak  minds  have  to  this 
salutary  practice,  but  to  enjoin  it  as  a  duty,  and  to  point  out  the 
danger  of  neglecting  to  make  use  of  a  means  which  Providence  has 
put  in  our  power  for  saving  the  lives  of  our  offspring.  Surely  such 
parents  as  wilfully  neglect  the  means  of  saving  their  children's 
lives  are  as  guilty  as  those  who  put  them  to  death. 


TRIUMPH  OF  INOCULATION.  55 

How  familiar  have  vaccinators  rendered  this  line  of 
adjuration !  If  you  do  not  comply  with  our  prescrip- 
tion, and  your  children  catch  smallpox,  then  are  you  their 
murderers. 

Here  is  another  passage  from  Buchan,  which  with 
equal  accuracy  might  apply  to  Vaccination — is  indeed 
what  is  perpetually  asserted  to  be  the  truth  concerning 
Vaccination — 

As  the  Smallpox  is  now  become  an  epidemical  disease  in  most 
parts  of  the  known  world,  no  other  choice  remains  but  to  render 
the  malady  as  mild  as  possible.  This  is  the  only  manner  of  extirp- 
ation now  left  in  our  power ;  and  though  it  may  seem  paradoxical, 
the  artificial  method  of  communicating  the  disease,  could  it  be 
rendered  universal,  would  amount  to  nearly  the  same  thing  as 
rooting  it  out.  It  is  a  matter  of  small  consequence  whether  a  dis- 
ease be  entirely  extirpated,  or  rendered  so  mild  as  neither  to 
destroy  life  nor  hurt  the  constitution ;  but  that  this  may  be  done 
by  Inoculation,  does  not  now  admit  of  a  doubt.  The  numbers  who 
die  under  Inoculation  hardly  deserve  to  be  named.  In  the  natural 
way,  one  in  four  or  five  generally  dies ;  but  by  Inoculation  not  one 
of  a  thousand.  Nay,  some  can  boast  of  having  inoculated  ten 
thousand  without  the  loss  of  a  single  patient. 

In  this  deliverance,  Buchan  did  not  lie,  nor  did  he 
speak  for  himself  alone,  but  expressed  the  medical 
opinion  of  his  time,  precisely  as  a  physician  of  to-day 
testifies  concerning  Vaccination.  Yet  we  all  know  that 
Buchan  was  completely  at  fault,  and  substituted  what  he 
wished  to  be  true  for  what  was  true. 

I  cannot  leave  Buchan  without  a  few  words  in  his 
favour,  for,  according  to  his  lights,  he  was  a  worthy 
fellow,  and  the  words  shall  be  his  own.  He  wrote — 

I  am  old  enough  to  remember  the  time  when  the  success  of 
Inoculation  was  supposed  to  be  entirely  owing  to  the  preparation 
of  the  body,  as  it  was  called ;  but  I  am  convinced  that  such  prepa- 
ration always  has  done,  and  still  does,  more  harm  than  good.  The 
body  cannot  be  better  prepared  to  meet  a  disease,  than  by  being  in 
good  health.  Medicine  may  cure  a  disease,  but  it  cannot  mend 
good  health.  When  a  person  enjoys  the  blessing  of  health,  he 
ought  never  to  meddle  with  medicine  on  any  account  whatever. 

No :  nor  with  half  an  inch  of  thread  dipped  in  pox. 


VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

INOCULATION  ABROAD. 

BEFORE  proceeding  to  relate  how  Inoculation  was  super- 
seded and  ultimately  suppressed  in  England,  it  may  be 
expedient  to  make  some  notes  on  the  prevalence  of  the 
practice  in  other  lands. 

And  first  in  New  England  where,  as  we  have  seen, 
Cotton  Mather  had  precedence  in  subjecting  the  reports 
of  eastern  inoculation  to  the  test  of  western  practice. 
Mather  and  his  coadjutor,  Boylston,  did  not  propose  to 
make  inoculation  habitual,  but  to  reserve  it  for  use  in 
epidemics.  Sometimes  years  elapsed  in  New  England 
without  smallpox  :  there  were  no  dense  urban  popu- 
lations to  constitute  seats  of  zymotic  disease:  and  to 
provide  perpetually  against  what  was  occasional  was  ob- 
viously unnecessary.  Nevertheless  the  colonists  shared 
the  common  disposition  of  the  time  for  pottering  in 
remedies,  and  their  slaves  afforded  convenient  oppor- 
tunities for  experiments  in  which  temerity  had  the 
sanction  of  beneficence.  With  the  Whites,  cleanliness, 
ventilation,  drainage,  and  pure  water,  were  conditions  of 
accident  rather  than  of  providence,  but  with  the  Blacks 
life  was  that  of  the  stye,  and  the  consequences  in  small- 
pox were  thought  to  be  sufficiently  accounted  for  by  the 
assertion  that  Negroes  were  constitutionally  pre-disposed 
to  that  disorder.  Wherefore  the  Blacks  from  Boston  to 
the  Spanish  Main  were  from  time  to  time  remorselessly 
inoculated,  and  all  of  them  who  afterwards  escaped  small- 
pox had  their  immunity  ascribed  to  their  inoculation. 

Jonathan  Edwards,  the  prince  of  Calvinistic  divines, 
was  killed  by  inoculation.  There  was  an  epidemic  of 
smallpox  in  New  Jersey,  and,  for  security,  Edwards  was 
inoculated.  The  result  was  the  generation  of  smallpox 
in  a  severe  form,  of  which  he  died,  22nd  March,  1758, 
in  his  54th  year.  In  search  of  a  superfluous  safety  was 
he  slain.  A  man  of  the  age  of  Edwards  had  little  to 


INOCULATION  ABROAD.  57 

fear  from  smallpox;  for  the  disease,  in  the  vast  majority, 
was  an  affection  of  the  young,  concerning  which,  as 
having  attained  middle  life,  Edwards  might  have  main- 
tained comparative  indifference. 

The  colonists  usually  ascribed  any  outbreak  of  small- 
pox to  importation  by  shipping  from  Europe,  if  not 
manifestly,  then  covertly;  for,  it  was  held  that  smallpox 
could  never  be  evolved  spontaneously.  Great  pains  were 
therefore  taken  to  isolate  patients,  and  Boston  and  other 
sea-ports  had  hospitals  erected  on  sites  remote  from 
habitation,  from  which  a  flag  was  displayed  whenever 
occupied  by  the  sick.  A  physician  who  visited  an  hos- 
pital was  required  to  take  off  his  wig,  to  change  his  shoes, 
and  to  put  on  a  gown  which  hung  from  his  neck  to  his 
ankles;  and,  when  he  came  out,  to  wash  his  hands,  and 
be  fumigated  with  frankincense.  In  setting  forth  these 
precautions,  Professor  Waterhouse  of  Cambridge,  Massa- 
chusetts, observed  in  a  letter  to  Dr.  Hay  garth  of  Chester — 

I  cannot  believe  them  altogether  unnecessary.  Our  towns  are 
small,  our  houses  scattered,  most  of  them  having  a  garden  between 
them,  so  that  we  have  been  able  to  trace  the  action  of  contagion. 
We  have  tried  many  experiments  with  smallpox  in  New  England, 
and  persuade  ourselves  that  we  have  some  pretensions  of  knowing 
more  of  that  disease  than  you  in  Europe. 

During  the  war  with  England,  smallpox  broke  out  in 
the  American  army,  and  inoculation  was  so  freely  re- 
sorted to  that  scarcely  a  man  escaped  the  lancet.  Wash- 
ington had  his  New  England  soldiers  inoculated  at 
Cambridge  in  1776,  and  it  was  difficult  to  find  men  to 
keep  guard  over  the  sick ;  that  is  to  say,  men  who  had 
passed  through  smallpox  and  were  not  considered  liable 
to  infection,  a  curious  evidence  of  the  rarity  of  the 
natural  disease  in  the  communities  from  which  the  army 
had  been  recruited.* 

Cotton  Mather's  triumph  over  Boston  was  complete — 
complete  beyond  his  intention;  for  it  came  to  be  as 
thoroughly  inoculated  as  any  town  in  these  days  is 

*  Humphries's  Life,  of  General  Putnam,  p.  151. 


58  VAEIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 

vaccinated.     Dr.  Waterhouse,  writing  on  28th  October, 
1788,  said— 

We  find  that  in  1752  there  were  but  170  persons  liable  to  small- 
pox in  Boston,  and  in  1754,  when  there  was  a  general  inoculation 
in  the  town,  I  question  whether  there  was  a  quarter  of  that  number 
that  did  not  receive  the  infection  via  nature  vel  artis.  In  the 
years  1776,  '77,  and  '78  they  inoculated  pretty  freely  throughout  the 
State.  Two  days  ago,  I  was  at  the  review  of  part  of  the  militia  of 
the  county  of  Suffolk,  and  of  520  men,  I  scarcely  think  there  were 
a  hundred  above  twenty-five  years  of  age  that  had  not  passed 
through  smallpox  by  means  of  inoculation  ;  and  of  2000  reviewed 
a  week  or  two  before,  in  the  county  of  Middlesex,  there  was  not  a 

freater  proportion   of  the  same  age  liable  to  take  the  disease, 
ince  1764  the  dread  of  smallpox  has  lessened  considerably ;  and 
since  1778  we  meet  the  disorder  with  as  little  fear  as  any  people 
you  can  mention. 

In  another  letter,  dated  15th  October,  1787,  the  Doctor 
said — 

I  do  not  believe  there  is  at  present  a  single  person  infected  by 
smallpox  in  all  the  four  New  England  Governments,  that  is,  not 
one  in  a  million  of  people.* 

However  it  may  have  been  elsewhere,  inocuiation  was 
conducted  in  Boston  with  a  formality  and  deliberation 
that  might  have  satisfied  Dimsdale  himself.  There  was 
an  inoculation  hospital  erected  on  Sewell's  Point,  which 
juts  into  Charles  River,  remote  by  a  mile  and  a  half  from 
the  common  road,  and  situated  in  pleasant  grounds  with 
trees  and  walks.  Three  weeks  were  devoted  to  inocu- 
lation and  the  subsequent  sickness,  and  before  dismissal, 
wrote  Dr.  \yaterhouse — 

The  patients  are  washed  all  over  in  soap  suds,  then  rubbed  with 
brandy,  and  lastly  washed  in  vinegar ;  they  put  on  fresh  clothes, 
and  bury  those  they  wore  during  their  stay  in  the  hospital.  But 
even  then  they  are  smoked  and  fumigated  with  sulphur  in  the 
smoke-house,  which  is  about  twice  the  size  of  a  common  sentry- 
box.  This  smoke-house  has  a  hole  in  its  side  for  the  patient  to 
put  his  head  out  of  during  the  operation.  Although  this  seems 
formidable  on  paper,  yet  patients  submit  cheerfully,  and  with  no 
slight  merriment. 

*  These  letters  of  Benjamin  Waterhouse,  M.D.,  Professor  of  Physic 
at  Cambridge,  Mass.,  appear  in  Haygarth's  Plan  to  Exterminate  Small- 
pox. London,  1793. 


INOCULATION  ABROAD.  59 

There  are  perhaps  150  under  inoculation  at  present  at  Sewell's 
Point,  not  one  of  them  paupers.  They  are  principally  children, 
perhaps  thirty  or  forty  of  them  of  the  first  people  in  the  common- 
wealth. The  charge  for  the  whole  process  is  8  dollars,  or  36s. 
sterling,  including  every  expense  from  incision  to  dismission.  In 
some  places  they  inoculate  for  half  that  sum.  You  must  conceive 
the  whole  business  conducted  with  a  good  deal  of  gaiety,  where  a 
patient,  when  ill,  is  as  apt  to  be  pitied  as  if  sea-sick  with  a  sailing 
party.  The  established  system  of  mirth  and  good  humour  contri- 
butes not  a  little  to  the  welfare  of  the  patients. 

It  is  a  curious  story,  and  stands  in  broad  contrast  to 
the  rough  and  ready  practice  of  Turkey,  and  of  many 
inoculators  in  England  and  elsewhere.  Dr.  Waterhouse 
adds — 

There  were  a  considerable  number  of  persons  in  Boston  to  whom 
smallpox  could  not  be  communicated  by  inoculation.  In  some  the 
operation  was  repeated  two,  three,  and  four  times  with  fresh 
matter.  Several  of  these  have  had  the  disease  severely  since  in 
the  natural  way,  and  some  have  died  of  it. 

France  was  slow  to  accept  inoculation.  After  its  in- 
troduction in  1723,  about  thirty  years  elapsed  without 
any  serious  movement  in  its  favour,  when  Voltaire, 
Diderot,  and  their  set  began  to  recommend  the  practice, 
which  had  the  merit  of  being  English  and  disliked  by 
those  who  held  change  and  improvement  in  aversion. 
La  Condamine  read  an  eloquent  paper  on  the  advantages 
of  inoculation  before  the  Academy  of  Sciences ;  and 
Turgot,  the  ardent  and  sagacious  lover  of  his  kind,  pro- 
cured the  inoculation  of  a  child  in  Paris,  1st  April,  1755; 
which  was  followed  on  14th  May  by  a  young  man, 
named  Chastellux,  submitting  himself  to  the  operation 
in  the  interest  of  the  common  welfare.  Then  Dr.  Hosty 
was  sent  to  London  to  investigate  and  report,  and  on  his 
return  issued  these  statements — 

1.  That  out  of  463  cases  inoculated  in  the  London  Hospital,  only 
one  had  been  unsuccessful ;  whereas  in  the  Smallpox  Hospital 
nearly  one  in  four  had  died. 

2.  That  Mr.  Eanby,  principal  surgeon  to  his  majesty,  had  inocu- 
lated 1600  persons,  and  Mr.  Bell  903,  without  the  loss  of  one. 

3.  That  to  form  a  just  comparison  between  the  fatality  of  natural 
and  artificial  smallpox,  it  is  only  necessary  to  visit  the  London 
Smallpox  Hospital  and  then  the  Inoculation  Hospital :  the  difference 


VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 


between  the  two  is  so  remarkable  that  the  most  incredulous  must 
be  convinced. 

4.  Lastly,  with  respect  to  the  asserted  insemination  of  other 
diseases  with  inoculated  smallpox  :  no  instance  of  the  kind  has  ever 
been  produced.  Persons  have  been  inoculated  with  variolous 
matter  taken  from  patients  afflicted  with  venereal  disease,  yet  they 
have  received  no  infection  save  that  of  smallpox  only. 

It  would  be  superfluous  to  deal  with  the  fallacies  in- 
volved in  these  statements  :  they  served  to  satisfy  those 
who  were  disposed  to  be  satisfied,  and  inoculation  became 
the  fashion  among  the  scientific  and  enlightened.  Dr. 
Tronchin,  a  well-known  inoculator,  was  summoned  from 
Geneva  to  Paris  in  1756  to  operate  upon  the  children  of 
the  Duke  of  Orleans,  and  his  success  was  pronounced 
decisive.  Nevertheless  inoculation  did  not  extend  beyond 
people  of  leisure  and  culture,  and  in  ]  763  an  outbreak  of 
smallpox  in  Paris  made  an  end  of  the  practice.  An  in- 
quiry was  instituted  by  the  authorities,  and  the  evidence 
left  no  doubt  that  the  epidemic  had  been  diffused,  if  it 
did  not  originate,  with  the  artificially  poxed;  and  inocu- 
lation was  thenceforth  prohibited  in  Paris.  Any  citizen 
who  was  resolved  to  have  the  induced  disease  had  to 
retire  to  country  quarters. 

Here  we  may  observe  that  the  confidence  of  the  in- 
oculator was  grounded  on  the  assumption  that  whoever 
had  once  passed  through  smallpox,  whether  natural  or 
artificial,  could  never  again  contract  the  disease.  Never- 
theless the  inoculated  did  contract  the  disease,  and  the 
disaster  was  uniformly  accounted  for  as  due  to  some 
imperfection  in  the  inoculation.  There  were  also  in- 
stances of  smallpox  after  smallpox,  but  these,  too,  were 
discredited;  the  first  smallpox  could  not  have  been  small- 
pox, but  chickenpox,  measles,  or  some  other  eruptive 
disorder.  There  was  a  conspicuous  confutation  of  these 
evasions  in  the  case  of  Louis  XV.  He  had  smallpox 
unquestionably  in  his  14th  year,  and  of  unquestionable 
smallpox  he  died  in  1774  in  his  64th  year.  Notwith- 
standing, the  assertion  was  perpetuated  that  there  was 
no  possibility  of  smallpox  after  smallpox,  and  it  was 
only  when  it  became  necessary  to  maintain  the  credit  of 


INOCULATION  ABROAD.  61 

vaccination  that  the  facts  were  admitted;  and  in  this 
form — Smallpox  after  vaccination  is  no  more  common  or 
extraordinary  than  smallpox  after  smallpox — a  falsehood 
on  the  back  of  a  former  falsehood. 

We  have  seen  under  what  safeguards  inoculation  was 
practised  in  Boston,  and  now  we  shall  turn  to  Geneva 
and  discover  how  all  the  American  precautions  were  set 
at  naught  in  that  city  with  apparent  impunity.  The 
details  are  from  a  letter  of  the  Council  of  Geneva,  dated 
24th  December,  1791,  addressed  to  Dr.  Haygarth  in 
answer  to  his  inquiries  and  suggestions.  Des  Gouttes, 
secretary  to  the  Geneva  Syndic,  wrote — 

I. — The  Kepublic  of  Geneva  contains  about  35,000  inhabitants, 
of  whom  26,000  dwell  in  the  city,  and  9,000  in  the  adjacent  country. 

II. — The  city  is  of  small  extent,  and  ill  adapted  to  so  large  a 
population ;  and  its  extension  is  not  easy  on  account  of  the  fortifica- 
tions wherewith  it  is  surrounded.  There  are  little  more  than  1200 
houses  in  the  city,  which  are  built  in  many  storeys  of  many  apart- 
ments like  the  ancient  part  of  Edinburgh,  each  house  sheltering  on 
an  average  twenty-one  inhabitants. 

III. — A  great  part  of  the  population  consists  of  strangers,  not 
only  because  most  of  our  servants  and  labourers  are  natives  of  other 
countries,  but  because  Geneva  being  a  frontier  city,  girt  about  by 
Savoy,  Switzerland,  and  France,  and  situated  on  the  highways  of 
intercourse  between  these  states,  travellers  are  always  coming  and 
going. 

IV. — Notwithstanding  this  continual  resort  of  strangers  within 
our  walls,  an  epidemic  of  smallpox  is  of  almost  regular  occurrence 
every  five  years ;  and  between  the  epidemics  it  frequently  happens 
that  we  have  no  natural  smallpox  whatever,  either  in  the  city  or 
its  vicinity. 

V. — Inoculation  began  to  be  practised  here  in  1751,  since  which 
date  we  have  inoculated  a  very  large  number  of  children  annually, 
and  with  such  marked  success  that  the  deaths  have  but  slightly 
exceeded  1  in  300.  Although  we  have  often  had  to  inoculate  with 
pus  brought  from  a  distance  at  times  when  there  was  no  smallpox 
to  be  found  in  the  city,  and  although  children  so  inoculated  have 
gone  freely  into  the  streets,  walks,  and  other  public  places,  before, 
during,  and  after  the  eruption,  we  have  never  observed  that  they 
were  sources  of  contagion,  nor  that  they  produced  any  intermediate 
epidemic,  nor  that  they  accelerated  the  return  of  the  periodical 
epidemic. 

VI. — Lastly,  our  citizens  enjoy  a  republican  constitution  which 
requires  us  to  pay  most  scrupulous  regard  to  the  liberty  of  every 
individual.  No  coercive  measures  to  hinder  the  introduction  or 


62  VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 

communication  of  smallpox  are  here  practicable ;  and  we  believe  we 
ought  to  limit  our  action  to  advice,  and  to  simple  precautions  of 
police,  which  must  not,  nor  even  seem  to  be,  oppressive  to  the 
citizens. 

This  glimpse  into  old  Geneva  is  not  only  instructive 
as  concerns  inoculation,  but  it  is  another  exposure  of  the 
monstrous  fable  that  represents  European  cities  as  de- 
cimated with  smallpox  until  Jenner's  advent  as  saviour 
— a  fable  that  vanishes  like  smoke  whenever  brought 
into  contact  with  matter-of-fact. 

Inoculation  was  introduced  to  Rome  and  Florence 
during  a  severe  epidemic  in  1754 ;  and  attention  being 
drawn  to  the  remedy,  it  was  discovered  that  the  Italian 
peasantry  had  long  practised  voluntary  smallpox  just  as 
did  the  peasantry  of  Wales  and  the  Highlands  of  Scot- 
land. In  Spain  inoculation  made  little  headway :  in  the 
words  of  Moore — 

Some  inoculations  were  effected  in  a  few  trading  cities,  which 
held  communication  with  England  ;  but  these  efforts  were  of  short 
duration,  and  from  the  distinguished  inaction  of  the  Spaniards, 
inoculation  was  soon  relinquished ;  and  no  other  country  in  Europe 
has  suffered  so  little  from  smallpox.* 

In  Holland  and  Denmark  inoculation  acquired  a  cer- 
tain vogue  among  the  upper  classes,  and  in  Germany 
the  like  was  true  to  a  less  extent.  In  Sweden  inoculation 
was  encouraged  by  the  Court,  and  Dr.  Schultz  was 
deputed  to  visit  the  London  Hospital.  His  report  was  so 
favourable  that  in  1755  inoculation  houses  were  opened 
in  several  parts  of  the  kingdom,  and  the  benefits  of  the 
practice  were  commemorated  by  a  medal  in  1757 — a 
curious  trophy  of  illusion  under  prepossession. 

Perhaps  the  most  notable  event  in  the  story  of  inocu- 
lation was  its  introduction  into  Russia :  how  it  was 
brought  about  is  thus  described  by  Mr.  Morley — 

As  soon  as  Catharine  came  into  power  (1762),  she  at  once  applied 
herself  to  make  friends  in  this  powerful  region  [French  letters  and 
philosophy] .  It  was  a  matter  of  course  that  she  should  begin  with 
the  omnipotent  monarch  at  Ferney.  Graceful  verses  from  Voltaire 

*  The  History  of  the  Smallpox.    By  James  Moore.    London,  1815.    P.  288. 


INOCULATION  ABROAD.  63 

were  as  indispensable  an  ornament  to  a  crowned  head  as  a  diadem, 
and  Catharine  answered  with  compliments  that  were  perhaps  more 
sincere  than  his  verses.  She  wonders  how  she  can  repay  him  for 
a  bundle  of  books  that  he  had  sent  to  her,  and  at  last  bethinks 
herself  that  nothing  will  please  the  lover  of  mankind  so  much  as 
the  introduction  of  inoculation  into  the  great  Empire  ;  so  she  sends 
for  Dr.  Dimsdale  from  England,  and  submits  to  the  unfamiliar  rite 
in  her  own  sacred  person.* 

One  day  in  the  summer  of  1768,  at  his  house  in  Hert- 
ford, Dimsdale  received  an  unexpected  message  from 
Pouschin,  the  Russian  minister  in  London,  to  wait  upon 
him  ;  and  in  his  presence  he  learnt  that  he  was  required 
to  proceed  at  once  to  St.  Petersburg  to  inoculate  the 
Empress.  There  was  of  course  some  hesitation  about 
undertaking  so  long  a  journey,  but  Pouschin  had  been 
authorised  to  overcome  all  obstacles.  What  would  the 
Doctor  require  in  the  way  of  expenses  ?  The  Doctor 
discreetly  answered  that  he  would  leave  that  to  her 
Imperial  Majesty,  whereon  Pouschin  handed  him  £1000 
to  pay  his  way  to  St.  Petersburg.  Dimsdale  summoned 
his  son  from  his  medical  studies  in  Edinburgh,  and  the 
two  set  off  for  the  North  on  the  28th  of  July. 

At  St.  Petersburg  Dimsdale  was  received  with  every 
mark  of  respect  and  liberal  hospitality.  He  was  intro- 
duced to  the  Empress,  who  was  charming  and  gracious ; 
and  he  was  instructed  to  make  the  requisite  preparations 
for  the  serious  duty  before  him.  He  had  to  find  pus, 
and  to  obtain  pus  he  had  to  lay  hands  on  a  suitable 
sufferer  from  smallpox — a  task  which  proved  by  no  means 
easy.  Having  discovered  a  case  to  his  mind,  he  had  then 
to  overcome  an  obstinate  objection  to  the  abstraction  of 
virus.  He  had,  at  the  same  time,  to  find  a  couple  of 
healthy  young  men,  who  had  not  had  smallpox,  on  whom 
to  raise  secondary  virus,  for  the  Empress  could  not  be 
expected  to  run  the  risk  of  smallpox  without  mitigation. 
His  first  attempt  was  a  complete  failure,  and  he  had  to 
report  accordingly  to  his  expectant  patient.  Catharine 
heard  his  report  with  philosophical  equanimity,  and  left 

*  Diderot  and  the  Encyclopaedists.     By  John  Morley.     Vol.  ii.  p.  114. 


64  VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 

him  to  try  again.  At  last  Ke  was  successful,  and  at  the 
palace  of  Czarscoe  Selo  on  Saturday,  llth  October,  1768, 
the  Empress  swallowed  five  grains  of  mercurial  powder, 
and  late  on  Sunday  evening  Dimsdale  inoculated  her 
with  fluid  matter  by  one  puncture  in  each  arm.  She  did 
well.  From  the  time  of  the  inoculation  to  the  commence- 
ment of  the  eruption,  she  walked  every  day  for  two  or 
three  hours  in  the  open  air,  and,  on  the  1st  November, 
she  returned  to  St.  Petersburg  "  in  perfect  good  health, 
to  the  great  joy  of  the  whole  city."  *  The  Grand  Duke 
was  inoculated  on  the  30th  October,  and  by  the  22nd 
November  had  "  perfectly  recovered." 

The  Empress  having  played,  the  nobility  had  to  follow 
suit,  and  Dimsdale  was  requested  to  proceed  to  Moscow 
to  take  them  in  hand ;  but  at  this  time  there  was  a  new 
difficulty.  There  was  said  to  be  no  smallpox  in  Moscow, 
and  as  Dimsdale  could  not  inoculate  without  fresh  virus, 
he  had  to  inoculate  two  girls  in  St.  Peteisburg,  designing 
so  to  time  their  disorder  that  he  should  arrive  with  them 
in  Moscow  in  prime  condition  for  business.  One  girl  was 
a  failure,  and  mishaps  and  delays  on  the  sledge  journey 
almost  made  a  failure  of  the  other.  He  did,  however, 
reach  Moscow  in  time  enough  to  communicate  the  re- 
quisite infection  to  fifty  patients,  and  in  Moscow  he 
remained  for  two  months  operating  and  playing  the  lion. 
Then  he  set  off  for  home,  and  on  his  route  through  St. 
Petersburg  found  Catharine  suffering  from  pleurisy,  for 
which  he  bled  her,  drawing  eight  ounces  of  imperial  blood. 
Then  came  the  reckoning.  In  substantials  he  had — 

^£10,000  down ; 

£2,000  for  travelling  expenses ; 

^£500  a  year  for  life,  to  be  paid  in  net  English  cash,  and 

A  superb  gold  snuff-box  set  with  diamonds  for  Mr.  Dimsdale, 

In  honours  he  had  the  appointments  of — 
Counsellor  of  State ; 

Physician  to  her  Imperial  Majesty  ;  and 
Baron  of  the  Eussian  Empire  with  descent  of  title  to  his 
eldest  son. 

*  Dimsdale :  Tracts  on  Inoculation. 


INOCULATION  ABROAD.  65 

It  was  a  barbarian's  style  of  recompense,  paid  under 
the  eye  of  Europe.  It  cost  Catharine  nothing,  for  it  is 
subjects  who  suffer  for  the  extravagance  of  despots. 

Dimsdale  had  plans  for  the  systematic  inoculation  of 
Russia,  but  they  resulted  in  little.  Catharine's  purpose 
was  sufficiently  served  in  the  display  she  had  made ;  and 
possibly  she  came  to  consider  Dimsdale  an  appendage  of 
that  deceiver  Voltaire,  whose  busts,  that  had  adorned 
her  saloons  and  corridors,  were  by  her  orders  thrown  into 
the  cellars  when  the  French  revolution  opened  her  eyes 
to  the  consequences  of  French  philosophy. 

In  perusing  the  literature  of  inoculation,  nothing  im- 
presses a  reader,  enlightened  by  sanitary  science,  so  much 
as  the  manner  in  which  smallpox  was  regarded  as  some- 
thing like  hail  or  lightning  that  might  be  averted,  but 
could  not  be  prevented.  So  far,  I  have  not  met  with 
even  a  hint  in  that  literature  that  smallpox  was  either 
induced  by  unwholesome  modes  of  life,  or  that  it  could 
be  avoided  by  wholesome  modes.  In  conjunction  with 
this  blindness  was  the  amazing  assumption  of  the  inocu- 
lators,  that  every  one  inoculated  was  to  be  placed  to  their 
credit  as  saved  from  smallpox ;  as  if  (granting  inoculation 
to  be  prophylactic)  smallpox  was  ever  a  universal  epi- 
demic, and  as  if  multitudes  did  not  pass  through  life 
without  smallpox  before  inoculation  was  heard  of.  The 
true  problem  to  be  set  and  solved  in  all  epidemics, 
whether  of  influenza  or  smallpox,  is  why  some  are  sus- 
ceptible and  some  insusceptible,  and  whether  it  is  not 
practicable  so  to  modify  conditions  as  to  carry  over  the 
susceptible  to  the  ranks  of  the  insusceptible. 


66  VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION, 

CHAPTER  IX. 

INOCULATION   SUPERSEDED  AND   SUPPRESSED. 

THE  illusory  character  of  human  testimony  is  graphically 
illustrated  in  the  case  of  inoculation.  Suppose  an  in- 
quirer wished  to  ascertain  the  ratio  of  deaths  to  inocu- 
lations, he  would  be  completely  bewildered.  We  have 
seen  what  Dr.  Buchan  wrote — 

In  the  natural  way,  one  in  four  or  five  generally  dies  of  small- 
pox ;  but  by  inoculation  not  one  of  a  thousand.  Nay,  some  can 
boast  of  having  inoculated  ten  thousand  without  the  loss  of  a 
single  patient. 

John  Birch,  an  eminent  London  surgeon,  said — 

Not  one  in  three  hundred  dies  of  inoculation  in  the  general 
irregular  mode  of  proceeding,  and  not  one  in  a  thousand  among 
observant  practitioners ;  and  if  the  inoculated  patient  die,  he  dies 
of  smallpox  and  of  nothing  but  smallpox.* 

In  the  Edinburgh  Review,  October,  1806,  we  read — 

Of  those  who  have  smallpox  naturally,  one  is  found  to  die  in  six. 
Of  inoculated  patients,  only  one  dies  in  two  hundred  and  fifty. 
This  at  least  is  Dr.  Willan's  calculation ;  and  we  are  persuaded 
that  it  is  very  near  the  truth.  In  London,  where  it  ought  to  be 
best  ascertained,  some  eminent  practitioners  have  stated  the  pro- 
portion to  be  so  high  as  one  in  the  hundred.  The  zealous  anti- 
vaccinists  have  denied  it  to  be  greater,  under  judicious  treatment, 
than  one  in  a  thousand.  It  cannot  be  denied,  however,  that  be- 
sides the  risk  to  life,  the  disease,  even  under  the  mitigated  form, 
has  frequently  proved  an  exciting  cause  of  scrofula  and  other 
dreadful  distempers,  and  has  often  been  attended  with  blindness 
and  deformity. 

In  Reynolds's  System  of  Medicine,  it  is  stated  by 
Marson  that — 

The  Smallpox  and  Inoculation  Hospital  was  founded  in  London 
in  1746,  and  inoculation  was  continued  there  until  1822.  Dr. 
Gregory  went  carefully  over  the  records  of  the  Hospital  for  that 
period  of  seventy-six  years,  and  found  that  only  three  in  a  thousand 
died  of  inoculation.  The  inoculated  disease  was  usually  very  mild, 
but  not  invariably  so. 

*  Serious  Reasons  for  Uniformly  Objecting  to  the  Practice  of  Vaccination. 
By  John  Birch.  London,  1806. 


INOCULATION  SUPERSEDED  AND  SUPPRESSED.    67 

Scores  of  such  testimonies  might  be  adduced,  twitching 
the  reader  from  conclusion  to  conclusion ;   and  in  the 
conflict  of  authorities  what  is  to  be  said  ?     It  is  true  that 
if  we  select  what  evidence  we  like,  and  call  it  sound,  and 
reject  what  we  dislike,  and  call  it  unsound,  we  may  prove 
anything;  but  it  is  also  true,  that  if  we  are  to  be  fettered 
by  evidence  we  shall  stand  paralysed  amid  contradictions. 
When  men  who  are  competent,  and  obviously  honest, 
deliver  varying  testimony,  we  are  driven  to  seek  some 
method  of  reconciliation ;  and  in  this  matter  of  Inocu- 
lation wherein  our  resort  is  to  books,  and  about  which 
we  can  have  no  immediate  experience,  we  may  derive 
much  light  from  the  corresponding  practice  of  Vaccina- 
tion.    Thus,  what  is  commoner  than  for  vaccinators  to 
assert,  that  never  within  their  sphere  of  observation  have 
they  witnessed  a  single  case  of  injury  resulting  from 
Vaccination — not    one !      Subject    any   dozen   ordinary 
practitioners  to  judicial  examination,  and  they  would 
thus  testify  with  scarcely  a  note  of  variation.     On  the 
other  hand,  take  any  dozen  mothers  of  families,  especially 
from  among  the  poor,  and  they  would  tell  of  illness,  dis- 
ease, and  death  following  the  vaccinators'  lancets.     The 
men  are  more  or  less  competent  and  honest,  and  the 
women  likewise,  and  how  shall  we  account  for  their  vari- 
ance ?    In  the  first  place,  the  men  have  been  drilled  from 
the  outset  of  their  profession  into  the  conviction  that 
Vaccination  is  absolutely  harmless,  and  if  any  disaster 
follows,  it  is  coincidence,  not  consequence.     Occasionally 
a  practitioner   of  more  vigorous  intelligence  than  the 
average,  like  Mr.  Henry  May  of  Birmingham,  sees  what 
the  mothers  see,  but  does  he  report  accordingly  ?     Not 
at  all.     In  Mr.  May's  own  words — 

A  death  from  Vaccination  occurred  not  long  ago  in  my  practice, 
and  although  I  had  not  vaccinated  the  child,  yet  in  my  desire  to 
preserve  Vaccination  from  reproach,  I  omitted  all  mention  of  it 
from  my  certificate  of  death.* 

Mr.  May  recognised  the  fact  and  concealed  it:  a  duller 

*  Birmingham  Medical  Revieiv,  January,  1874. 


68  VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 

man  would  have  ascribed  the  death  mechanically  to  ery- 
sipelas or  pyoemia.  Indeed,  it  is  a  commonplace  with 
medical  men,  that  no  child  dies  of  Vaccination ;  and 
hence  Vaccination  is  not  an  admitted  cause  of  death;  and 
when  the  fact  is  insisted  upon,  there  is  no  limit  to  the 
hardihood  wherewith  the  truth  is  crushed  down  and 
covered  up.  Coroners  refuse  to  hold  inquests  on  children 
slain  by  Vaccination,  and  Dr.  Lankester,  as  coroner  for 
Middlesex,  did  not  hesitate  to  authorise  a  false  certificate 
of  death  in  order,  like  Mr.  May,  "to  preserve  Vaccination 
from  reproach."  *  As  for  mothers,  poor  creatures,  few 
of  them  have  minds  of  their  own,  and  if  only  they  were 
adequately  assured  that  it  was  for  the  good  of  their 
offspring  that  their  noses  should  be  slit,  they  would 
believe,  weep,  and  submit. 

But  it  will  be  pointed  out  that  inoculators  of  the  more 
reasonable  sort  admitted  a  certain  mortality  from  the 
practice.  It  is  so;  but  the  admission  was  unavoidable. 
Inoculation  communicated  smallpox,  and  there  was  no 
evasion  of  the  fact  that  occasionally  the  malady  assumed 
a  severe  form,  and  the  patient  died.  For  such  mishaps, 
however,  there  were  always  excuses.  The  patient  was 
not  in  a  suitable  condition  of  body ;  he  had  been  eating 
improperly ;  he  had  caught  cold ;  and  so  on.  There  re- 
mained, nevertheless,  the  sequelae  of  Inoculation,  which 
were  just  as  persistently  denied  as  are  those  of  Vaccin- 
ation, although  there  were  always  clear-sighted  observers 
who  maintained  that  it  was  impossible  to  infect  the  blood 
with  a  complex  organic  virus,  and  that  it  should  exhaust 
its  effects  in  a  single  and  definite  issue.  We  all  remember 
how  we  used  to  be  assured  with  contemptuous  emphasis 
that  it  was  utterly  impossible  to  communicate  Syphilis 
by  Vaccination,  and  that  assertions  to  the  contrary  were 
the  fables  of  ignorance  and  malice;  yet,  we  see  that 
what  was  fabulous  a  few  years  ago,  is  now  accepted  as 
medical  matter-of-fact.  Nowhere  is  scepticism  so  useful 


*  The  facts  are  set  forth  in  Vaccination  Tracts,  No.  14,  p. 


INOCULATION  SUPERSEDED  AND  SUPPRESSED.        69 


as  among  physicians ;  for  whenever  they  protest  most, 
suspect  most. 

With  the  close  of  the  18th  Century,  Inoculation  with 
smallpox  to  avert  smallpox  was  accepted  as  sound  prac- 
tice throughout  England.  Its  safety  and  efficiency  were 
extolled  by  medical  writers  in  terms  curiously  identical 
with  those  applied  to  Vaccination.  The  objectors  were 
few,  and  for  pious  rather  than  physiological  reasons;  and 
the  question  that  exercised  practical  and  benevolent 
minds  was  how  to  universalise  the  remedy,  which,  on 
account  of  its  troublesome  accompaniments,  was  chiefly 
confined  to  the  upper  and  middle  classes.  On  this 
point  it  may  be  well  to  cite  the  words  of  Dr.  Haygarth 
of  Chester,  who,  in  a  letter  to  the  Council  of  Health  of 
Geneva,  dated  10th  February;  1792,  thus  sets  forth  the 
position  of  affairs — 

In  Chester,  and,  I  believe,  in  most  of  the  large  towns  of  England, 
the  casual  smallpox  is  almost  constantly  present.  All  the  chil- 
dren of  the  middle  and  higher  ranks  of  our  citizens  are  inocula- 
ted in  early  infancy.  The  populace,  very  generally  regarding  the 
distemper  as  inevitable,  neither  fear  nor  shun  it ;  but  much  more 
frequently  by  voluntary  and  intentional  intercourse,  endeavour  to 
catch  the  casual  infection.  All  the  difficulties  of  our  Smallpox 
Society  in  Chester  proceeded  from  this  strange  delusion  and  per- 
versity of  disposition.  With  us  the  smallpox  is  seldom  or  never 
heard  of  except  in  the  Bills  of  Mortality  ;  but  there  its  devastation 
appears  dreadful  indeed. 

The  strong  objection  to  Inoculation  was,  that  it  diffused 
the  disease  generally  which  it  was  supposed  to  avert 
individually.  Inoculators  tried  to  minimise  and  deny 
the  danger,  but  in  vain ;  and  nothing  so  contributed  to 
the  supersession  of  the  practice  by  Vaccination  as  the 
expectation  of  escape  from  the  artificially  propagated 
disease.  How  extensive  was  that  propagation,  we  leave 
the  writer  in  the  Edinburgh  Review  of  1806  to  describe — 

The  inoculated  smallpox  is  an  infectious  disease,  and  those  who 
take  it  naturally  from  an  inoculated  patient  have  it  as  violently  as 
if  they  had  been  infected  from  a  case  of  spontaneous  disease ;  it  is 
to  all  intents  and  purposes  the  natural  smallpox  again  in  them. 
Now,  if  it  be  considered  that  several  hundred  thousand  persons 
have  been  annually  inoculated  in  these  Kingdoms  for  the  last  fifty 


70  VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 

years,  it  will  be  easy  to  calculate  the  immense  addition  that  must 
have  been  made  in  that  period  to  the  cases  of  actual  disease,  and 
the  increase  of  natural  smallpox  that  may  be  supposed  to  have 
arisen  from  this  constant  multiplication  of  the  sources  and  centres 
of  infection. 

Unless  this  culture  and  this  traffic  in  smallpox  through- 
out the  United  Kingdom  be  realised,  the  potent  cause  of 
the  immediate  and  extravagant  success  of  Vaccination 
will  be  left  out  of  reckoning.  When  we  are  harassed, 
anxious  and  impatient  under  some  course  of  conduct, 
our  ears  are  open  to  any  promise  of  relief ;  and  it  was  to 
a  generation  so  afflicted  and  so  receptive  that  Jenner  in 
1798  made  his  revelation  of  the  virtue  of  cowpox.  No 
more  need,  said  he,  to  inoculate  with  smallpox.  Sub- 
stitute cowpox ;  and  whilst  it  will  protect  as  effectually, 
it  will  inflict  no  injury  and  diffuse  no  infection.  The 
revelation  was  received  with  acclamation,  and  within 
eighteen  months  of  its  delivery  (without  due  experience, 
and  without  any  warrant  that  could  pass  muster  in 
the  severe  realm  of  science)  the  leading  physicians  and 
surgeons  of  London  subscribed  and  published  the  follow- 
ing manifesto  in  the  newspapers  of  1800 — 

We,  the  undersigned  physicians  and  surgeons,  think  it  our  duty 
to  declare  our  opinion,  that  those  persons  who  have  had  the  Cow- 
pox  are  perfectly  secure  from  the  infection  of  the  Smallpox,  pro- 
vided this  infection  has  not  been  previously  communicated. 

I  do  not  wish  to  anticipate  the  wondrous  tale  of 
Jenner — my  present  purpose  is  to  show  how  Inoculation 
was  set  aside;  and  it  suffices  to  state  that  cowpox  rapidly 
made  an  end  of  inoculation  with  smallpox.  Indeed,  I 
question  whether  a  revolution  in  practice  was  ever 
effected  with  similar  facility.  Within  eight  years  of 
the  delivery  of  Jenner's  revelation,  the  writer  in  the 
Edinburgh  Review  of  1806,  already  cited,  was  able  to 
testify — 

The  bitterest  enemies  of  Vaccination  will  not  deny,  that  more 
than  nine-tenths  of  the  medical  world  are  decidedly  and  zealously 
in  favour  of  it,  and  that  all  their  demonstrations  of  its  dangers  and 
terrors  have  been  insufficient  to  convert  a  single  one  of  their  breth- 
ren from  so  damnable  and  dangerous  a  heresy.  Testimonies,  it 


INOCULATION  SUPERSEDED  AND  SUPPRESSED.        71 

may  be  said,  should  be  weighed,  and  not  numbered ;  and  in  this 
respect  the  vaccinators,  we  are  afraid,  will  have  a  splendid  and 
indisputable  triumph.  We  give  the  anti-yaccinists  all  the  advan- 
tage in  our  power  when  we  assign  to  them  a  few  members  of  the 
profession  in  London  ;  for  in  the  country  at  large,  we  believe,  they 
have  not  one  respectable  practitioner  on  their  side  in  five  hundred. 
In  this  great  city  and  school  of  medicine  [Edinburgh]  we  are  as- 
sured, they  are  without  a  single  public  adherent. 

The  resistance  to  Vaccination  was  almost  entirely  con- 
fined to  the  resistance  of  inoculators,  who  were  too  deeply 
compromised  by  their  own  disloyalty  to  Nature,  to  make 
effective  resistance.  They  were  steadily  borne  down  by 
the  vaccinators,  many  of  whom  had  been  energetic  in- 
oculators, and  displayed  the  usual  ardour  of  apostates  in 
condemning  what  they  had  formerly  approved.  Indeed, 
when  we  consider  how  Inoculation  was  commended  for 
its  efficiency  and  harmlessness  by  the  same  medical 
authorities  who,  within  a  year  or  two  after  Jenner's 
appearance,  denounced  the  practice  for  its  difficulties 
and  dangers,  their  tergiversation  appears  little  short  of 
shameless.  Dr.  Lettsom  had  been  an  inoculator,  yet  on 
2nd  July,  1805,  he  felt  warranted  in  writing — 

What  have  not  the  abettors  of  Variolous  Inoculation  to  answer 
for?  To  shoot  a  dozen  or  two  innocent  people  in  the  public 
streets  of  London  would  not  be  half  so  injurious  as  allowing  the 
murderers  to  kill  the  rising  generation,  the  future  hope  of  the 
State.  Nothing  can  show  the  supineness  and  ignorance  of  the 
Government  more  than  legalising  these  Variolous  Murders. 

How  far  the  conquest  of  the  inoculators  by  the  vac- 
cinators had  advanced,  appeared  in  a  debate  in  the 
House  of  Commons  in  1806,  when  Wilberforce  urged 
that  Inoculation  should  be  suppressed,  or  at  least  that 
those  who  insisted  on  Inoculation  should  be  compelled 
to  place  their  patients  in  quarantine.  Mr.  Windham 
admitted  the  scandal  of  wretched  and  miserable  subjects 
of  Inoculation  being  carried  about  in  the  streets,  but 
he  hesitated  to  recommend  coercive  legislation  until 
persuasion  had  been  fully  tried  and  had  failed.  Dr. 
Matthews,  M.P.  for  Hereford,  took  occasion  at  the  same 
time  to  run  with  the  hounds.  Inoculation,  he  said,  was  a 


72  VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 

frequent  cause  of  disfigurement  and  of  death  in  its  most 
awful  form ;  it  was  a  magazine  of  the  most  dreadful 
evils ;  a  magnifier  of  mortality ;  and  a  means  of  intro- 
ducing scrofula,  a  more  dangerous  and  pernicious  disorder 
than  smallpox  itself — facts  which  it  would  have  been 
more  creditable  to  have  proclaimed  when  Inoculation  was 
in  fashion.  It  is  so  easy  to  kick  when  a  foe  has  fallen, 
and  where  all  are  kicking.  Human  nature  is  never  so 
despicable  as  when  thus  engaged. 

The  question  of  restraining  Inoculation  came  again 
before  the  House  of  Commons  in  1807,  when  the  practice 
of  inoculating  out-patients  at  the  London  dispensaries 
and  hospitals  was  energetically  condemned.  "  I  think 
that  the  legislature,"  said  Mr.  Sturges  Bourne,  "  would 
be  as  much  justified  in  taking  a  measure  to  prevent  this 
evil  by  restraint,  as  a  man  would  be  in  snatching  a  fire- 
brand out  of  the  hands  of  a  maniac  just  as  he  was  going 
to  set  fire  to  a  city." 

No  one  was  more  eager  to  suppress  Inoculation  by 
force  than  Jenner  himself,  and  in  July  1807,  he  sought 
an  interview  with  the  Premier  for  the  purpose.  In  a 
letter  to  Dr.  Lettsom  he  thus  describes  his  mortification — 

You  will  be  sorry  to  hear  the  result  of  my  interview  with  the 
Minister,  Mr.  Perceval.  I  solicited  this  honour  with  the  sole  view 
of  inquiring  whether  it  was  the  intention  of  Government  to  give  a 
check  to  the  licentious  manner  in  which  Smallpox  Inoculation  is  at 
this  time  conducted  in  the  metropolis.  I  instanced  the  mortality 
it  occasioned  in  language  as  forcible  as  I  could  utter,  and  showed 
him  clearly  that  it  was  the  great  source  from  which  the  pest  of 
smallpox  was  disseminated  through  the  country  as  well  as  through 
the  town.  But,  alas !  all  I  said  availed  nothing,  and  the  speckled 
monster  is  still  to  have  the  liberty  that  the  Smallpox  Hospital,  the 
delusions  of  Moseley,  and  the  caprices  and  prejudices  of  the  mis- 
guided poor,  can  possibly  give  him.  I  cannot  express  to  you  the 
chagrin  and  disappointment  I  felt  at  this  interview. 

We  are  not  accustomed  to  regard  politicians  of  Perce- 
val's order  as  favourable  to  liberty ;  and  yet  it  is  refresh- 
ing to  remark  in  even  the  Tories  of  the  Georgian  age  a 
jealous  regard  for  the  personal  freedom  of  Englishmen, 
and  a  hearty  contempt  for  the  plausible  quacks  who 
were  always  contriving  to  circumscribe  it.  Perceval  was 


INOCULATION  SUPERSEDED  AND  SUPPRESSED.   73 

not  opposed  to  Vaccination,  but  he  would  not  consent  to 
give  it  an  illicit  advantage  over  Inoculation.  If  it  were 
the  good  thing  it  was  asserted  to  be,  it  might  be  left  to 
prevail  by  reason  of  its  own  quality. 

Under  medical  and  social  pressure,  the  practice  of  Ino- 
culation at  public  institutions  was  gradually  abandoned. 
On  5th  May,  1808,  the  inoculation  of  out-patients  was 
discontinued  at  the  London  Smallpox  Hospital,  but  not 
until  20th  of  June,  1822,  did  the  inoculation  of  in- 
patients  cease.  In  1816  the  Colleges  of  Surgeons  of 
London  and  Dublin  pledged  themselves  against  the  prac- 
tice. A  formal  attempt  at  coercive  legislation,  often 
called  for,  was  at  last  made  by  the  directors  of  the 
National  Vaccine  Establishment.  They  framed  and  pro- 
moted a  bill,  which  was  introduced  to  the  House  of 
Lords  in  1813  by  Lord  Boringdon,  but  it  was  ignomini- 
ously  withdrawn  in  1814 — a  choice  example  of  grand- 
motherly legislation.  Among  its  provisions  was  the 
enactment  that  whenever  an  inoculation  took  place,  the 
clergyman  of  the  parish  should  receive  notice,  and  that 
red  flags  should  be  displayed  from  the  house  where  the 
patient  lay !  As  Earl  Stanhope  observed,  instead  of 
being  a  measure  of  humanity,  it  would,  if  passed  into 
law,  be  one  of  the  most  troublesome,  inconvenient,  and 
mischievous  ever  enacted. 

In  the  discussion  on  this  foolish  project,  Lord  Eldon 
pointed  out  that  the  common  law  was  already  sufficient 
to  arrest  the  exposure  of  sufferers  from  infectious  dis- 
ease ;  and  acting  on  the  hint  the  Vaccine  Establishment 
prosecuted  a  woman,  27th  April,  1815,  for  carrying  her 
inoculated  child  covered  with  pustules  through  the 
streets  of  her  neighbourhood.  Evidence  was  adduced 
that  she  had  thus  infected  eleven  persons  with  smallpox 
of  whom  eight  had  died.  The  Court  of  King's  Bench 
pronounced  her  conduct  illegal  and  criminal,  but  as  it 
was  the  first  prosecution  for  such  an  offence,  she  was  let 
off  with  a  sentence  of  three  months'  imprisonment. 

A  practice  thus  banned  could  not  long  survive  in 
England,  and  by  and  by  a  medical  man  who  would  con- 


VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 


sent  to  inoculate  became  a  rarity,  or  was  accounted  dis- 
reputable. Yet  there  remained  old-fashioned  folk  who 
would  have  nothing  to  do  with  cowpox,  and  insisted  on 
having  genuine  human  pox  for  their  children  and  grand- 
children. Hence  Dr.  Epps  writing  in  1831  had  to  say- 
There  is  a  class  of  medical  practitioners  who  inoculate  for  the 
smallpox.  Society  should  utter  its  voice  of  moral  indignation 
against  such  individuals,  who  glory  in  anything  by  which  they  can 
claim  singularity,  or  by  which  they  can  increase  their  pecuniary 
means.  Let  not  society  be  deceived  into  any  parley  with  such 
practices  upon  the  plea,  that  parents  will  have  their  children 
inoculated  with  the  smallpox.* 

Gradually  the  inoculating  practitioner  ceased,  and  the 
practice  remained  in  the  hands  of  "ignorant  and  un- 
qualified persons,  old  women,  and  itinerant  quacks  ;  "  -f- 
and  then  the  end  came.  An  Act  of  Parliament  was 
passed  in  1840  wherein  it  was  enacted  that  — 

Any  person  who  shall  produce  or  attempt  to  produce  in  any 
person  by  inoculation  with  variolous  matter,  or  by  wilful  exposure 
to  variolous  matter,  or  to  any  matter,  article,  or  thing  impregnated 
with  variolous  matter,  or  wilfully  by  any  other  means  whatsoever 
produce  the  disease  of  smallpox  in  any  person  in  England,  Wales, 
or  Ireland,  shall  be  liable  to  be  proceeded  against  and  convicted 
summarily  before  any  two  or  more  justices  of  the  peace  in  petty 
sessions  assembled,  and  for  every  such  offence  shall,  upon  convic- 
tion, be  imprisoned  in  the  common  gaol  or  house  of  correction  for 
any  term  not  exceeding  one  month. 

The  Government  did  not  at  first  intend  to  make  the 
prohibition  absolute,  but  Mr.  Wakley  insisted  that  the 
time  had  arrived  to  suppress  the  nuisance  summarily, 
and  that  not  a  voice  would  be  raised  in  opposition.  Nor 
was  there  any  opposition.  Mr.  Goulburn  expressed  some 
hesitation,  but  the  House  was  practically  unanimous. 

Outside  the  House  few  regrets  were  expressed.  Dr. 
George  Gregory,  physician  of  the  Smallpox  Hospital  at 
St.  Pancras,  was,  however,  a  man  of  philosophic  turn, 
and  he  did  not  see  the  old  idol  cast  down  unmoved. 

On  23rd  July,  1840  [he  wrote]  ,  the  practice  of  inoculation,  the 
introduction  of  which  has  conferred  immortality  on  the  name  of 

*  Life  of  John  Walker,  M.D.     London,  1831,  p.  326. 

t  Letter  of  Poor  Law  Commissioners,  20th  August,  1840. 


INOCULATION  SUPERSEDED  AND  SUPPBESSED.   75 

Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu,  which  had  been  sanctioned  by  the 
College  of  Physicians,  which  had  saved  the  lives  of  many  kings, 
queens,  and  princes,  and  of  thousands  of  their  subjects,  during  the 
greater  part  of  the  preceding  century,  was  declared  illegal  by  the 
English  Parliament,  and  all  offenders  were  to  be  sent  to  prison, 
with  a  good  chance  of  the  tread-mill.  Such  are  the  reverses  of 
fortune  to  which  all  sublunary  things  are  doomed.* 

Gregory  was  not  blind  to  the  extravagant  claims  made 
for  Vaccination,  and  evidently  had  a  lurking  conviction 
that  all  was  not  gain  in  the  substitution  of  the  new 
practice  for  the  old,  saying — 

Had  not  the  discovery  of  Jenner  interfered  to  interrupt  its 
extension  and  improvement,  Inoculation  would  have  continued  to 
this  day  increasing  yearly  in  popularity,  f 

Yet  was  not  Inoculation  abolished.  Sometimes  when 
we  get  the  devil  out  at  the  door,  he  presently  re-enters 
by  the  window ;  and  thus  while  Parliament  was  making 
an  end  of  Inoculation  in  one  form,  it  was  reviving  in 
another. 

It  is  to  be  understood  that  Jenner's  cowpox,  whatever 
it  might  be,  was  an  uncommon  and  erratic  disease,  and 
its  discovery  and  maintenance  difficult.  To  provide  a 
substitute,  cows  were  from  time  to  time  inoculated  with 
smallpox,  and  the  resulting  virus  was  used  instead  of  the 
Jennerian  specific.  Lest  one  should  be  accused  of  ques- 
tionable witness,  let  us  refer  to  Dr.  Seaton's  Handbook 
of  Vaccination.  There  we  read — 

Mr.  Ceely  of  Aylesbury  in  February,  1839,  succeeded  in  inducing 
vaccine  vesicles  on  two  sturks  by  inoculation  with  variolous  lymph, 
and  in  thus  establishing  lymph-stocks,  which  passed  at  once  into 
extensive  use,  so  that,  in  a  few  months,  more  than  2000  children 
had  been  vaccinated  from  them.  In  December,  1840,  Mr.  Badcock 
succeeded  in  variolating  a  cow  at  Brighton,  and  deriving  therefrom 
a  stock  of  genuine  vaccine  lymph.  In  this  manner  he  has  raised 
stocks  of  vaccine  lymph  for  use  on  no  fewer  than  thirty-seven  sep- 
arate occasions.  The  lymph  thus  obtained  by  him  is  now  largely 
employed ;  it  has  been  supplied  to  many  hundreds  of  practitioners, 
and  very  many  thousands  of  children  have  been  vaccinated  with 
it.  Mr.  Ceely's  experiments  were  repeated  in  America  in  1852  by 
Dr.  Adams  of  Waltham,  and  Dr.  Putnam  of  Boston,  who  were 

*  Lectures  on  Eruptive  Fevers.     London,  1843,  p.  39.     f  Ib.,  p.  93. 


76  VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 

able,  it  is  said,  to  furnish  the  city  and  neighbourhood  of  Boston 
with  all  the  vaccine  matter  used  there  since  that  period. 

Again,  Sir  John  Cordy  Burrows,  a  surgeon,  speaking 
as  a  magistrate,  at  Brighton  on  5th  February,  1876, 
observed — 

The  public  seem  scarcely  to  understand  what  Vaccination  means. 
The  vaccine  lymph  taken  from  a  child  is  nothing  more  than  what 
has  passed  from  a  smallpox  patient  through  a  cow.  In  1856-58  I 
took  an  active  part  in  inoculating  seventeen  cows  with  smallpox, 
producing  in  three  cases  vaccine  lymph,  and  from  these  the  world 
has  been  supplied. 

Thus,  as  asserted,  has  Inoculation  been  revived,  and 
Jenner's  specific  set  aside.  When  Dimsdale  had  Russian 
nobles  to  operate  upon,  he  tried  to  mollify  the  smallpox 
by  passing  it  through  healthy  children.  Cows  have  now 
taken  the  place  of  children,  and  the  virus  in  its  passage 
from  arm  to  arm  may  still  further  be  reduced  in  viru- 
lence, when  it  does  not  take  up  fresh  malignities  such  as 
syphilis ;  but  it  is  inoculation  with  smallpox  all  the 
same. 


CHAPTER   X. 

AS  TO  THE  PREVALENCE  OF  SMALLPOX  IN 
THE  18TH  CENTURY. 

THE  exact  truth  as  to  the  prevalence  of  smallpox  in  the 
18th  Century  is  not  attainable;  vital  statistics  were 
undeveloped;  and  in  the  absence  of  precision  the  ima- 
ginative revel.  M.D.'s  and  M.P.'s  shut  their  eyes,  tilt 
their  noses  skyward,  and  prophesy  concerning  the  fright- 
ful ravages,  and  the  salvation  wrought  by  the  revered 
and  immortal  Jenner.  Any  extravagance,  as  to  the 
ravages,  or  as  to  the  salvation,  is  accepted  as  laudable 
zeal  for  humanity.  "  Decimation  "  is  a  favourite  word 
in  this  connection  without  any  sense  of  its  definite 
meaning.  "  What  family  before  1800  ever  escaped  de- 


SMALLPOX  IN  THE  18ra  CENTURY.  77 

cimation  from  smallpox?"  asks  Dr.  Granville.  "Small- 
pox decimated  the  country  in  olden  times,"  says  Dr. 
Chavasse ;  "  it  ravaged  like  a  plague,  whilst  Inoculation 
caused  the  disease  to  spread  like  wild-fire;"  adding  as  a 
sequence,  "Vaccination  is  an  important  cause  of  our 
increasing  population."  In  the  same  temper,  Lord  Chief 
Justice  Cockburn  described  an  unvaccinated  infant  as 
"  a  centre  of  contagion ; "  and  as  the  folly  of  the  great  is 
intensified  in  the  little,  Mr.  Bompas,  Q.C.,  informed  the 
electors  of  Marylebone,  that  "  a  person  not  vaccinated  is 
like  a  flaming  fire-brand  among  the  people."  Thus  the 
infants  of  last  century  were  "  centres  of  contagion  ; "  the 
adults  were  "  flaming  fire-brands ; "  whilst  England  was 
"decimated"  with  smallpox  diffused  like  wild-fire  by 
inoculation.  What  a  picture  of  18th  Century  England 
painted  by  Rant  and  illuminated  by  Delirium  ! 

The  tendency  of  excess  on  one  side  is  to  provoke  to  ex- 
cess on  the  other,  but  the  extravagance  of  these  popular 
fables  ought  to  put  us  in  love  with  homely  matter-of- 
fact — wherein  indeed  is  the  true  extreme  of  these  frantic 
inventions.  What  was  the  extent  of  smallpox  in  England 
last  century  is  the  question.  With  accuracy,  we  do 
not  know.  The  common  estimates  (when  not  evolved 
from  inner  consciousness)  are  based  on  the  London 
Bills  of  Mortality,  and  when  these  Bills  are  scrutinised 
we  find  nothing  to  justify  the  opinion  that  the  com- 
munity was  harassed  and  devastated  by  smallpox  over 
other  ailments.  In  the  first  place,  we  have  to  remark 
that  the  exact  population  of  the  metropolis  was  unknown. 
Some  say  it  was  500,000  in  1701,  and  others  700,000. 
In  1751  it  was  generally  reckoned  at  750,000,  and  in 
1801  it  was  said  to  be  958,863.  Then  we  have  to  con- 
sider that  the  increase,  whatever  it  might  be,  lay  only 
partially  within  the  Bills  of  Mortality,  for  several  rising 
quarters  were  outside  the  boundaries,  and  there  were  ex- 
tensive exemptions  within.  Thus,  so  late  as  1818,  we 
find  Dr.  Burrows  writing — 

The  parishes  of  Marylebone,  Pancras,  Chelsea,  Kensington,  and 
Paddington,  now  forming  an  integral  part  of  the  metropolis,  and 


78  VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 

containing  a  population  of  160,000  are  not  within  the  Bills  of  Mor- 
tality, and  make  no  returns.  Neither  are  there  any  returns  from 
St.  Paul's  Cathedral,  Westminster  Abbey,  the  Temple  Church,  the 
Eolls  and  Lincoln's  Inn  Chapels,  the  Chapter  House,  the  Tower 
Church,  and  various  other  places  of  worship  of  the  Established  Church. 
Besides,  neither  Dissenters,  Papists  or  Jews  who  have  burying  places 
of  their  own,  are  included  in  the  Bills.  Many  of  the  wealthier 
classes  when  they  die  are  removed  for  interment  into  the  country ; 
nor  do  they  appear  in  the  Bills. 

With  omissions  so  serious,  the  Bills  are  obviously 
worth  little  as  registers  of  the  number  of  deaths  in  any 
year  in  London ;  and  when  we  inquire  how  far  they  may 
be  trusted  as  indicating  the  relative  prevalence  of  certain 
forms  of  disease,  we  find  them  equally  questionable.  Dr. 
Burrows  thus  describes  the  method  by  which  the  causes 
of  death  were  ascertained — 

Diseases  as  specified  in  the  Bills  are  a  disgrace  to  the  medical 
science  and  civilisation  in  which  as  a  nation  we  are  acknowledged 
pre-eminent;  nor  can  any  effective  reform  take  place  while  the 
sources  of  information  are  so  ignorant  and  venal  as  at  present. 
The  information  as  to  the  disease  of  which  any  person  dies  is  col- 
lected and  verified  in  the  following  way. — The  Churchwardens  of 
each  parish  within  the  Bills  of  Mortality  appoint  two  old  women 
to  the  office  of  Searchers.  These  women  as  soon  as  they  hear  the 
knell  for  the  dead,  repair  to  the  sexton  of  the  parish  to  learn  the 
residence  of  the  deceased.  They  demand  admittance  into  the  house 
to  examine  the  body  in  order  that  they  may  see  that  there  is  nothing 
suspicious  about  it,  and  judge  of  what  disease  the  person  died  ;  and 
they  report  to  the  parish  clerk.  The  regular  charge  for  the  per- 
formance of  this  oifice  is  4d.  to  each  Searcher ;  but  if  an  extra 
gratuity  be  tendered,  they  seldom  pass  the  threshold  or  hall  of  the 
house,  and  are  content  with  whatever  account  is  given ;  or  should 
they  actually  view  the  corpse,  it  is  easy  to  imagine  what  credit  is 
due  to  the  judgment  they  pronounce.* 

In  presence  of  defects  so  grave  as  to  the  number  of  the 
dead,  and  of  diagnosis  so  grotesque  as  to  the  causes  of 
death,  it  would  be  unwise  to  argue  with  any  confidence 
from  the  data  of  these  Bills;  yet,  such  as  they  are,  we  have 
nothing  else  to  appeal  to.  The  variations  of  mortality 
from  year  to  year  were  of  wide  irregularity ;  and  what- 
ever influence  smallpox  might  have  had,  it  does  not 

*  "On  the  Uses  and  Defects  of  Parish  Registers."  By  G.  M.  Burrows, 
M.D.  In  London  Medical  Repository,  No.  58,  October,  1818. 


SMALLPOX  IN  THE  18TH  CENTURY. 


79 


appear  to  have  had  much  in  magnifying  the  annual  totals. 
Let  us  take  a  dozen  years  when  smallpox  was  heaviest 
from  the  last  seventy  years  of  the  century,  and  observe 
its  relation  to  the  entire  mortality,  and  to  that  from 
fevers — 

Burials  from  From 

all  Diseases.  Smallpox. 

27,581 3014..., 

30,811 2725..., 

28,157.... 

25,516..., 

20,485..., 

1757 21,313  ... 

1762 26,326..., 

1763 26,143... 


Year. 
1736... 

1740... 
1746... 
1749... 
1752... 


From  Fevers. 

3361 

4003 

3236 4187 

2625 4458 

3538 2070 

3296 2564 

2743 3742 

3582 3414 

1768 23,639 3028 3596 

1772 26,053 3992 3207 

1781 20,709 3500 2249 

1796 19,288 3548 1547 


296,021 


38,827 


38,398 


Again,  let  us  take  twelve  years  when  the  death-rate 
from  smallpox  was  at  its  lowest.     Here  they  are — 


Year. 


Burials  from 
all  Diseases. 


1745 21,296.... 

1750 23,727.... 

1751 21,028.... 

1753 19,276.... 

1773 21,656.... 

1780 20,517.... 

1782 17,918.... 

1786 20,454.... 

1788 19,697.... 

1795 21,179.... 

1797 17,014.... 

1799 18,134.... 

241,896 


From 
Smallpox.        From  Fevers. 

1206 2690 

1229 4294 

998 3219 

774 2292 

1039 3608 

871 2316 

636 2552 

1210 2981 

1101 2769 

1040 1947 

522 1526 

...1111 1784 


11,737 


31,978 


We  thus  see  that  in  twelve  years  when  the  death-rate 
from  smallpox  was  highest,  as  many  died  of  fevers  as  of 
smallpox  ;  and  in  twelve  years  when  the  death-rate  from 
smallpox  was  lowest,  there  died  thrice  as  many  of  fevers 
.as  of  smallpox.  Again,  we  have  to  remark,  that,  on  an 


80  VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 

average  of  all  the  years,  smallpox  was  accountable  for 
something  less  than  a  tenth  of  the  total  mortality.  Also 
we  have  to  note,  that  the  mortality  from  smallpox  was 
in  great  part  infant  mortality,  and  that  there  is  reason  to 
believe  measles  was  extensively  confounded  with  small- 
pox. The  infant  mortality  was  prodigious.  Rarely  a 
year  passed  in  which  a  fourth  of  the  deaths  was  not  set 
down  to  Convulsions — that  is,  to  babes  killed  by  im- 
proper feeding.  In  1772  (the  worst  smallpox  year  of 
the  century  when  3,992  died)  there  were,  6,605  ascribed 
to  Convulsions,  the  total  mortality  being  26,053. 

Now  I  have  no  wish  to  minimise  the  London  small- 
pox of  last  century,  nor  even  to  set  1797,  when  522 
died,  against  1796,  when  3548  died.  I  yield  to  none  in 
detestation  of  smallpox  as  a  preventible  and  therefore 
disgraceful  affliction.  Let  so  much  pass  for  granted ; 
but  do  not  let  us  in  any  access  of  sanitary  fury  lose  alike 
eyes  and  reason  and  rave  like  maniacs.  If  smallpox  was 
bad,  fevers  were  worse,  and  as  both  had  a  common  origin, 
why  should  we  make  a  wanton  and  unscientific  distinc- 
tion between  them  ? 

That  smallpox  should  have  been  constantly  present  in 
London  throughout  last  century  was  in  nowise  surprising. 
The  citizens  lived  in  a  manner  to  invite  and  maintain 
fevers.  I  shall  refer  to  their  food  and  drink  presently, 
and  would  now  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  they  were 
a  stay-at-home  generation  almost  beyond  present-day 
belief.  Cowper  did  not  violate  credibility  when  he 
sang — 

John  Gilpin's  spouse  said  to  her  dear, 
"  Though  wedded  we  have  been 

These  twice  ten  tedious  years,  yet  we 
No  holiday  have  seen." 

They  had  no  ready  means  of  locomotion,  and  indeed 
did  not  think  of  fresh  air  and  exercise.  An  apprentice 
or  maid  from  the  country  entered  London  and  was  im- 
mured as  in  a  prison.  We  know  how  the  lower  orders 
in  our  own  time  huddle  together  like  pigs,  unless  so  far 
as  restrained  by  lodging-house  law,  but  middle-class 


SMALLPOX  IN  THE  18TH  CENTURY.  81 

Londoners  a  century  ago  utilised  their  apartments,  with 
more  decency  perhaps,  but  with  equal  ignorance  of  the 
virtue  of  oxygen.  The  Londoners  were  a  densely  com- 
pacted community,  and  at  night  the  streets  and  lanes  of 
the  city  were  almost  as  thickly  tenanted  as  a  man-of-war, 
but  without  benefit  of  sea-air.  A  Quaker  told  me  that 
he  served  his  apprenticeship  to  a  grocer  in  Cheapside 
between  1786  and  1793,  that  the  shop  was  opened  at 
seven  in  the  morning  and  closed  at  ten  at  night,  that  he 
slept  under  the  counter,  that  his  ablutions  were  limited 
to  his  countenance,  and  that  he  never  went  out  except  to 
meeting  on  First  Days ;  adding,  that  he  had  no  sense  of 
being  hardly  dealt  with ;  it  was  the  custom  of  the  time, 
and  he  was  as  his  fellows.  Memoirs  of  the  18th  century 
prove  that  he  spoke  the  simple  truth.  Bishop  Wilson  of 
Calcutta  records  that  he  served  in  the  house  of  a  silk 
merchant  in  Milk  Street  from  1792  to  1797,  that  he  was 
occupied  from  six  or  seven  in  the  morning  till  eight  at 
night;  that  there  was  supper  at  8.30,  followed  by  prayers, 
and  that  all  went  to  bed  at  ten.  An  apprentice  in  the 
same  house  said  that  he  never  put  on  his  hat  for  weeks 
together,  and  that  more  than  three  years  elapsed  before 
his  first  holiday  was  granted.  William  Cobbett  in  1783 
got  into  a  lawyer's  office  in  Gray's  Inn  where,  he  relates, 
"  I  worked  like  a  galley  slave  from  five  in  the  morning 
till  eight  or  nine  at  night,  and  sometimes  all  night  long. 
I  never  quitted  this  gloomy  recess  except  on  Sundays 
when  I  usually  took  a  walk  to  St.  James's  Park."  Such 
instances  might  be  multiplied  to  any  extent;  and  in 
short  it  comes  to  this,  that  the  Londoners  of  last  century 
lived  from  year  to  year  in  their  houses,  and  had  no  out- 
door exercise.  If  they  were  careless  about  air,  they 
were  equally  careless  about  light,  and,  but  for  the  cost  of 
candles,  might  have  disregarded  it  altogether.  Water 
was  chiefly  brought  from  wells  or  conduits,  and  was 
used  sparingly ;  and  it  is  needless  to  add,  there  were  no 
water-closets.  Even  in  well-ordered  households,  stenches 
were  dreadful ;  and  where  there  were  slatterns,  the  con- 
dition of  affairs  may  be  faintly  imagined.  Horrible 
6 


82  VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 

cesspools  lay  behind  or  beneath  most  of  the  houses, 
evolving  pestiferous  effluvia.  Out  of  doors,  the  streets 
were  scarcely  less  noisome.  Rain  was  the  chief  scavenger. 
Swift,  in  his  description  of  a  City  Shower,  sets  before  us 
as  graphically  as  Hogarth,  the  offices  of  the  rain — 

Now  in  contiguous  drops  the  flood  comes  down 

Threatening  with  deluge  this  devoted  town.     .     .     . 

Now  from  all  parts  the  swelling  kennels  flow, 

And  bear  their  trophies  -with  them  as  they  go  : 

Filths  of  all  hues  and  odours  seem  to  tell 

"What  street  they  sailed  from  by  their  sight  and  smell. 

They,  as  each  torrent  drives  with  rapid  force, 

From  Smithfield  or  St.  'Pulchre's  shape  their  course, 

And  in  huge  confluence  joined  at  Snowhill  ridge, 

Fall  from  the  conduit  prone  to  Holborn  Bridge. 

Sweepings  from  butchers'  stalls,  dung,  guts,  and  blood, 

Drowned  puppies,  stinking  sprats,  all  drenched  in  mud, 

Dead  cats,  and  turnip-tops,  come  tumbling  down  the  flood. 

Nor  in  estimating  the  sanitary  condition  of  18th  Cen- 
tury London  is  the  influence  of  the  dead  on  the  living  to 
be  forgotten.  The  twenty  thousand  who  died  annually 
remained  to  poison  the  survivors.  The  city  grave-yards 
were  places  of  decomposition  rather  than  of  interment, 
and  an  odour  of  corpses  pervaded  many  neighbourhoods. 
Mr.  Samuel  Gale  wrote  in  1736 — 

In  the  church-yard  of  St.  Paul,  Covent  Garden,  the  burials  are 
so  frequent  that  the  place  is  not  capacious  enough  to  contain 
decently  the  crowds  of  dead,  some  of  whom  are  not  laid  above  a 
foot  under  the  loose  earth.  The  cemetery  is  surrounded  every  way 
with  close  buildings ;  and  an  acquaintance  of  mine,  whose  apart- 
ments look  into  the  churchyard,  hath  averred  to  me  that  the  family 
have  often  rose  in  the  night-time  and  been  forced  to  burn  frankin- 
cense and  other  perfumes  to  dissipate  and  break  the  contagious 
vapour.  This  is  an  instance  of  the  danger  of  infection  proceeding 
from  the  corrupt  effluvia  of  dead  bodies.* 

Church-goers  were  subjected  to  cadaverous  influences 
from  the  dead  in  the  yard  without  and  from  the  dead  in 
the  vaults  below;  and  pious  thoughts  acquired  an  in- 
describable savour  of  the  sepulchre.  Many  illnesses 
originated  in  church;  and  families  who  led  wholesome 

*  Nichols's  Illustrations  of  Literary  History,  vol.  iv.  p.  499. 


SMALLPOX  IN  THE  18ra  CENTURY.  83 

lives  at  home  were  brought  into  deadly  peril  when  they 
turned  out  on  Sundays  to  public  worship. 

It  is  necessary  to  enter  into  these  details  if  we  would 
know  what  manner  of  people  the  Londoners  were  who 
suffered  from  smallpox,  and  what  sort  of  place  London 
was  wherein  they  suffered.  Londoners  have  been  taken 
for  the  standard  of  18th  century  smallpox,  in  forgetful- 
ness  of  the  fact  that  there  did  not  then  exist  in  England 
a  town  of  a  hundred  thousand  inhabitants — perhaps 
only  two  or  three  of  fifty  thousand;  whilst  the  rural 
population  bore  a  far  larger  proportion  to  the  urban  than 
is  the  case  at  this  day.  In  so  far  as  the  sanitary  condi- 
tions of  Bristol,  Norwich,  or  York  resembled  those  of 
London,  the  analogy  between  them  held  good;  but  to 
convert  the  London  rate  of  smallpox  into  the  com- 
mon rate  of  England,  of  Europe,  and  of  the  world, 
and  to  use  the  appalling  result  as  a  whip  of  terror 
wherewith  to  enforce  universal  inoculation,  and  after- 
wards vaccination,  was  sheer  absurdity,  if  not  something 
worse. 

Whilst  smallpox  was  always  present  in  London,  its 
appearance  in  the  country  was  irregular  and  usually 
epidemic.  The  Bills  of  Mortality  of  towns  as  large  as 
Northampton  were  sometimes  clear  of  smallpox  for  years. 
Sir  Gilbert  Blane,  in  his  advocacy  of  Vaccination  versus 
Inoculation,  said,  that  previous  to  the  practice  of  inocu- 
lation there  were  many  parts  of  the  country  where  small- 
pox was  unknown  for  periods  of  twenty,  thirty,  and  even 
forty  years.  Mr.  Connah,  a  surgeon  of  Seaford,  Sussex, 
with  a  population  of  700,  informed  Dr.  Hay  garth  in  1782, 
that  one  person  had  died  of  smallpox  in  Seaford  about 
eleven  years  before,  and  he  could  not  ascertain  that  any 
other  death  from  the  disease  had  occurred  subsequently ; 
and  that  there  was  reason  to  believe  that  a  like  immunity 
prevailed  throughout  the  smaller  towns  and  villages  of 
the  southern  counties.  Wherever  we  inquire,  we  are 
driven  to  the  conclusion  that  the  prevalence  and  fatality 
of  smallpox  in  the  18th  century  were  grossly  exaggerated 
by  quacks  and  panicmongers.  Nor  should  we  forget  in 


84:  VABIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 

this  connection  how  Professor  Waterhouse,  of  Boston,  an 
ardent  inoculator,  had  to  write  in  1787 — 

I  do  not  believe  there  is  at  present  a  single  person  infected  by 
smallpox  in  all  the  four  New  England  Governments  ;  that  is,  not 
one  in  a  million  of  people. 

What  we  have  to  say  of  London  smallpox  during  last 
century  is,  that  prevalent  as  it  was,  our  wonder  is  that 
it  was  not  more  prevalent ;  that  the  disease  was  bred  in 
the  circumstances  and  habits  of  the  citizens ;  and  that  if 
it  were  possible  to  reproduce  the  same  conditions,  we 
should  reproduce  the  same  smallpox.  On  the  contrary, 
say  our  valiant  vaccinators,  the  same  conditions  might 
be  reproduced,  but  if  the  citizens  were  universally  and 
efficiently  vaccinated  and  re-vaccinated,  there  would  be 
no  smallpox.  Thus  we  are  taught  that  people  may  eat 
and  drink  as  they  like,  live  in  darkness,  neglect  personal 
cleanliness,  take  little  exercise,  breathe  air  polluted  by 
respiration,  filth,  and  putrefaction,  and  that  whatever 
disease  overtakes  them,  they  will  be  proof  against  small- 
pox. The  promise  is  deceptive,  but  it  was  the  promise 
of  the  inoculator,  and  it  is  the  promise  of  the  vaccinator ; 
and  Dr.  Drysdale,  describes  the  practice  which  warrants 
the  promise  as  "  the  greatest  triumph  of  hygienic  science 
— I  repeat,  by  far  the  greatest  triumph  of  positive 
hygienic  science  ever  made."* 

Some  share  in  the  fatality  of  18th  century  smallpox 
must  be  charged  to  the  treatment  of  the  disease.  What 
was  described  as  the  cool  regimen  was  no  secret,  yet  its 
practice  appears  to  have  been  limited  to  few;  whilst 
with  the  multitude,  patients  were  confined  to  close  and 
heated  rooms,  under  heavy  bed-clothes,  plied  with  hot 
drinks,  cordials,  and  alcohol,  and  kept  in  foul  linen  until 
killed  or  cured.  Frequently,  when  symptoms  of  smallpox 
appeared,  bleeding,  blistering,  and  purging  were  energeti- 
cally resorted  to.  If  a  family  of  children  were  affected, 
they  were  commonly  stowed  away  in  one  bed,  and  their 
skins  would  stick  together  with  pus  and  sweat.  It  was 

*  The  Times,  23rd  Oct.  and  4th  Dec.,  1879. 


SMALLPOX  IN  THE  18ra  CENTURY.  85 

much  the  same  in  hospitals  and  workhouses.  "  1  have 
seen  above  forty  children,"  says  Dr.  Buchan,  "  cooped  up 
in  one  apartment,  all  the  while  they  had  this  disease, 
without  any  of  them  being  admitted  to  breathe  the  fresh 
air."  The  same  course  was  pursued  with  other  fevers, 
and  the  effluvia  of  the  sick-room  was  overpowering. 
Take  this  instance  from  Jenner's  own  household.  His 
nephew,  Henry,  and  a  maid-servant,  were  seized  with 
typhus,  and  Jenner  wrote — 

The  stench  from  the  poor  girl  is  so  great  as  to  fill  the  house  with 
putrid  vapour ;  and  I  shall  remove  Henry  this  morning,  by  means 
of  a  sedan  chair,  to  an  adjacent  cottage.* 

Indeed,  the  cleanliness  and  ventilation  we  consider  so 
salutary  were  sedulously  avoided.  Cold  air  was  account- 
ed specially  pernicious,  and  occasionally  when  the  poor, 
afflicted  with  smallpox,  were  exposed  to  the  weather, 
astonishment  was  expressed  that  recovery  instead  of  death 
was  the  issue.  It  is  related  in  Hutchins's  History  of 
Dorset  that  Blandford  was  burnt  down  in  1731,  and 
several  patients  in  smallpox  were  laid  under  the  arches 
of  the  bridge  as  a  place  of  refuge,  and,  to  the  general 
surprise,  all  got  well,  although  many  had  died  in  their 
beds  before  the  fire.  John  Birch  a  London  surgeon  of 
high  repute,  writing  in  1814,  sums  up  the  case  for  us  on 
this  head  in  saying — 

I  consider  the  natural  smallpox  a  mild  disease,  and  only  rendered 
malignant  by  mistakes  in  nursing,  in  diet,  and  in  medicine,  and  by 
want  of  cleanliness,  which  last  is  the  fomes  of  hospital  fevers,  and 
all  camp  and  contagious  disorders. 

It  would  hardly  be  too  bold  to  say,  that  the  fatal  treatment  of 
this  disease,  for  two  centuries,  by  warming  the  chamber,  and  by 
stimulating  and  heating  cordials,  was  the  cause  of  two-thirds  of  the 
mortality  which  ensued. f 

We  now  come  to  an  interesting  question.  If  the 
reader  refers  to  the  list  of  twelve  years  of  greatest  small- 
pox, and  to  the  list  of  twelve  years  of  least  smallpox  in 

*  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  i.  p.  107. 

t  An  Appeal  to  the  Public  on  Vaccination.     By  John  Birch. 


86  VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 

London,  it  will  be  observed  that  the  years  of  least  small- 
pox predominate  in  the  last  quarter  of  the  century,  and 
this  in  spite  of  the  diffusion  of  the  disease  by  Inoculation. 
The  inoculators  when  charged  with  increasing  smallpox 
appealed  to  the  London  Bills  of  Mortality.  "  Let  us,"  they 
said,  "  take  the  last  ninety  years  of  the  century,  and  we 
shall  find  that  there  died  in  London  of  smallpox  in  the 
thirty  years — 

From  1711  to  1740  inclusive 65,383 

1741  to  1770         „         63,308 

1771  to  1800        „         57,268 

Here  we  see,  that  the  number  of  deaths  was  greater  in 
the  first  thirty  years  by  2075  than  in  the  second  thirty 
years  during  which  Inoculation  had  acquired  some  sta- 
bility, and  greater  by  8115  than  in  the  last  thirty  years, 
during  which  Inoculation  was  the  established  practice  of 
most  prudent  families.*  We  are  therefore  unjustly  ac- 
cused. These  figures  leave  no  doubt  that  smallpox  is 
decreasing,  and  we  claim  that  the  decrease  is  due  to  our 
practice." 

The  decrease  was  certain,  but  I  cannot  allow  that  it 
was  due  to  Inoculation ;  on  the  contrary  I  assume  that 
the  decrease  would  have  been  greater  but  for  the  culture 
of  the  disease  by  the  inoculators.  The  fact  is  extremely 
distressing  to  the  more  rabid  vaccinators,  and  Dr.  Cor- 
field  tries  to  curse  it  out  of  existence  as  "  the  falsest  of 
falsehoods ; "  but  there  it  abides.  It  is  hard  for  those 
who  represent  Jenner  as  the  saviour  of  mankind  from 
smallpox  to  have  it  shown  that  Londoners,  at  least,  were 
in  process  of  salvation  before  his  intervention  ;  but  facts, 
alas  !  are  cruelly  unkind  to  theorists,  sentimentalists,  and 
quacks  of  all  sorts.  In  the  words  of  Dr.  Farr — 

Smallpox  attained  its  maximum  mortality  after  Inoculation  was 
introduced.  The  annual  deaths  from  smallpox  from  1760  to  1779 
were  on  an  average  2323.  In  the  next  twenty  years,  1780  to  1799 
they  declined  to  1740.  The  disease,  therefore,  began  to  grow  less 

*  Dr.  Adams  in  Medical  Journal,  1810,  p.  31.  Dr.  Gregory  in  his 
treatise  on  Eruptive  Fevers,  1843,  cites  and  endorses  this  argument. 


SMALLPOX  IN  THE  18ra  CENTURY.  87 

fatal  before  Vaccination  was  discovered  ;  indicating,  together  with 
the  diminution  of  fevers,  the  general  improvement  of  health  then 
taking  place."  * 

The  decrease  of  smallpox  towards  the  close  of  the  cen- 
tury, says  Dr.  Farr,  was  due  to  "  the  general  improvement 
of  health  then  taking  place;"  but  to  what  was  that 
improvement  due  ?  No  marked  improvement  had  been 
effected  in  the  sanitary  arrangements  of  London — 
why  then  this  change  for  the  better  ?  My  answer  is, 
that  a  great  alteration  was  in  progress  in  the  popular 
diet. 

Dr.  George  Cheyne,  in  his  famous  Essay  of  Health  and 
Long  Life,  published  in  1724,  says — 

There  is  no  chronical  distemper  whatsoever  more  universal,  more 
obstinate,  and  more  fatal  in  Britain,  than  the  Scurvy  taken  in  its 
general  extent. 

And  more  than  fifty  years  afterwards,  in  1783,  we 
have  Dr.  Buchan  bearing  similar  testimony — 

The  disease  most  common  to  this  country  is  the  Scurvy.  One 
finds  a  dash  of  it  in  almost  every  family,  and  in  some  the  taint  is 
very  deep. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  cite  authority  for  what  was 
so  generally  known  and  confessed ;  but  in  this  question 
of  smallpox  and  its  prevention  we  have  to  deal  with 
many  who  appear  to  be  destitute  of  any  historic  sense ; 
who  argue  as  if  what  Englishmen  are  to-day,  they  always 
were ;  and  who  contend  that  as  there  was  more  smallpox 
in  London  before  Jenner  than  since  Jenner,  therefore 
Jenner  must  be  the  cause  of  the  diminution.  It  is 
necessary  to  condescend  to  such  feeble  folk. 

The  cause  of  the  general  scorbutic  habit  of  the  people 
was  widely  recognised  by  medical  men,  and  Buchan 
merely  repeated  their  common  opinion  in  saying — 

A  disease  so  general  must  have  a  general  cause,  and  there  is  none 
so  obvious  as  the  great  quantity  of  animal  food  devoured  by  the 
natives  of  this  island.  As  a  proof  that  Scurvy  arises  from  this 

*  Article,  "Vital  Statistics  :  Epidemics,"  in  M'Culloch's  Statistical 
Account  of  the  British  Empire. 


88  VABIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 

cause,  we  are  in  possession  of  no  remedy  for  that  disease  equal  to 
the  free  use  of  vegetables.* 

Cheyne  said  much  the  same  at  the  earlier  date.  He 
complained  that  the  upper  classes  gorged  themselves 
with  animal  food,  and  slaked  their  thirst  with  wine, 
"  which  is  now  [1724]  become  common  as  water,  and  the 
better  sort  scarce  ever  dilute  their  food  with  any  other 
liquor."  Beer  had  the  place  of  wine  among  the  middle 
and  lower  orders.  In  the  words  of  Buchan — 

The  English  labourer  lives  chiefly  on  bread,  which  being  accom- 
panied with  other  dry,  and  often  salt  food,  fires  his  blood  and  ex- 
cites an  unquenchable  thirst,  so  that  his  perpetual  cry  is  for  drink. 

He  adds — 

If  men  will  live  on  dry  bread,  poor  cheese,  salt  butter,  broiled 
bacon,  and  such  like  parching  food,  they  will  find  their  way  to  the 
alehouse — the  bane  of  the  lower  orders,  and  the  source  of  half  the 
beggary  in  the  nation. 

Were  we  to  say  that  the  diet  of  the  English  for  the 
greater  part  of  last  century  consisted  of  Bread,  Beef,  and 
Beer,  we  should  not  go  far  wrong.  The  London  bread 
was  then,  as  now,  poor  stuff;  "  spoiled,"  says  Buchan,  "  to 
please  the  eye,  artificially  whitened,  yet  what  most  pre- 
fer, and  the  poorer  sort  will  eat  no  other."  Whenever  it 
could  be  obtained,  beer  was  the  beverage  that  went  with 
bread,  and  was  drank  by  young  and  old.  Salt  beef  and 
mutton,  bacon,  salt  fish,  and  butchers'  offal  completed 
the  dietary  of  the  multitude.  The  feeding  of  the  poor  in 
hard  seasons  exercised  the  beneficent  severely,  for  the 
baker's  bill  often  went  far  to  exhaust  the  working-man's 
earnings. 

It  was  easy  to  recommend  the  rich  to  get  rid  of  their 
scurvy  by  a  resort  to  vegetable  food,  but  to  the  poor 
with  their  obstinate  prejudices,  shiftlessness,  and  ignor- 
ance, such  a  recommendation  was  a  sort  of  mockery. 
Deliverance,  however,  came  in  a  form  recommended  by- 
pleasantness  and  economy,  namely,  in  the  potato.  It  is 
true  the  tuber  had  been  known  long  before,  but  not  as 

*  Domestic  Medicine.  Chap.  Ivi.  Concerning  the  Diet  of  the  Com- 
mon People. 


SMALLPOX  IN  THE  18ra  CENTURY.  89 

an  article  of  free  and  ordinary  consumption.  Toward 
the  middle  of  the  century  it  was  discovered  that  potatoes 
could  be  grown  cheaply  in  large  quantities,  and  supply 
and  demand  developed  together.  Women  and  children 
especially  rejoiced  in  the  new  food,  whilst  the  benevolent 
exulted  in  the  liberal  accession  to  the  poor  man's  fare. 
It  became  a  point  of  duty  with  Lord  and  Lady  Bountiful 
to  recommend  the  culture  and  consumption  of  potatoes 
everywhere;  and  to  see  how  far  the  substitution  of 
potatoes  for  bread  had  extended  early  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  we  need  only  refer  to  the  pages  of  Cobbett,  who 
denounced  the  change  with  unwearied  virulence  as  a  de- 
gradation of  humanity.  Certainly  potatoes  are  inferior 
to  bread  in  nutritive  value,  but  in  food  we  have  to  look 
for  more  than  mere  nutriment;  and.  the  general  use  of 
the  potato  went  far  to  purify  and  ameliorate  the  blood 
of  the  English  people. 

The  appearance  of  the  potato  as  a  cheap  constituent  of 
common  fare,  was  an  argument  wherewith  Jenner  en- 
deavoured to  allay  apprehensions,  that,  having  stopped 
smallpox,  there  would  soon  be  more  mouths  than  food  to 
fill  them.  To  Dunning  he  wrote,  10th  February,  1805 — 

I  have  often  urged  the  following  argument  when  too  numerous 
a  population  has  been  thrown  in  my  teeth,  as  one  of  the  ill  effects 
likely  to  attend  vaccination.  Who  would  have  thought  a  century 
ago,  that  providence  had  in  store  for  us  that  nutritious  and  excellent 
vegetable,  the  potato — that  ready  made  loaf,  as  it  were,  which  is 
prepared  in  higher  perfection  in  the  garden  of  the  cottager  than  in 
the  highly  manured  soil  of  the  man  of  opulence. 

And  again  to  Worthington,  25th  April.  1810 — 

What  a  gift  from  Heaven  was  this  extraordinary  vegetable — a 
ready  made  loaf;  reserved,  too,  till  the  hour  when  population,  in 
these  realms  at  least,  began  first  to  increase ;  and  then  coming  we 
scarcely  know  how.  Away  with  Malthus  and  his  dreary  specula- 
tions !  The  skies  are  filled  with  benevolence,  and  let  population 
increase  how  it  may,  let  us  not  distrust  and  suppose  that  men 
will  ever  pick  the  bones  of  each  other.* 

Nor  was  the  change  in  the  people's  diet  limited  to  the 
introduction  of  the  potato ;  with  it  came  tea.  Of  course 

*  Baron's  Life,  of  Jenner,  vol.  ii.  pp.  348  and  410. 


90  VARIOLOUS  INOCULATION. 

we  know  that  tea  was  drank  in  England  long  ere  George 
III.  was  King,  but  it  was  in  his  days  that  tea  came  into 
popular  use.  Here  again  we  may  refer  to  Buchan,  who 
was  strongly  opposed  to  the  innovation.  He  wrote — 

It  is  said  the  inhabitants  of  Great  Britain  consume  more  tea 
than  all  the  other  nations  of  Europe  together.  The  higher  ranks 
use  tea  as  a  luxury,  while  the  lower  orders  make  a  diet  of  it.  The 
lowest  woman  in  England  must  have  her  tea,  and  the  children 
generally  share  it  with  her.  The  mischiefs  occasioned  by  tea  arise 
chiefly  from  its  being  substituted  for  solid  food,  and  had  I  time  to 
spare,  I  think  it  could  not  be  better  employed  than  in  writing 
against  the  destructive  drug.  Its  use  will  induce  a  total  change 
in  the  constitutions  of  the  people  of  this  country.  Indeed,  it  has 
gone  a  great  way  towards  effecting  that  evil  already. 

What  Buchan  had  not  time  to  do,  Cobbett  subsequent- 
ly did,  and  some  of  his  most  racy  patches  of  vituperation 
were  applied  to  tea  and  tea-drinkers.  In  Bacon,  Bread 
and  Beer,  according  to  Cobbett,  consisted  the  strength 
of  the  English  working-man,  whilst  tea  and  potatoes  he 
held  in  abomination. 

To  this  partial  substitution  of  potatoes  and  tea  for 
salted  animal  food  and  malt  liquor,  we  may  justly  at- 
tribute the  reduction  of  the  scorbutic  habit  of  the  people, 
and  that  improvement  of  health  which  were  coincident 
with  the  close  of  last  century  and  were  continued  into 
the  present.  What  every  student  of  vital  statistics  has 
to  remember  is,  that  conditions  have  to  be  identical  to 
yield  identical  results.  The  lives  of  the  majority  of  the 
English  people  last  century,  and  notably  so  in  London, 
were  hard  and  sordid  to  a  degree  which  in  these  times 
is  difficult  to  realise.  Their  sanitary  conditions  have  been 
indicated,  and  I  would  now  enforce  the  observation,  that 
they  were  ill  fed  and  insufficiently  fed;  consequently 
their  diseases  were  malignant,  and  smallpox  not  un- 
frequently  scarred  deeply  its  scorbutic  victims.  Where- 
fore to  run  a  parallel  between  the  Londoners  of  the  18th 
century  and  the  English  of  the  19th  in  the  matter  of 
smallpox,  and  to  ascribe  any  difference  between  them  to 
Jenner's  specific,  is  to  display  ignorance  that  is  inexcus- 
able, or  craft  unscrupulous. 


PAET  II -VACCINATION, 


CHAPTER   I. 


THE  competent  biographer,  it  is  said,  must  be  an  admirer 
of  his  subject,  for  only  so  far  as  he  sympathises  can  he 
understand.  Tout  comprendre  cest  tout  pardonner. 
But  I  neither  propose  to  write  a  Life  of  Jenner,  nor  do 
I  believe  it  essential  to  insight  to  sympathise  where 
compelled  to  reprobate.  In  Jenner's  case  we  have  to 
deal  with  an  accident  rather  than  with  a  vigorous 
personification  of  evil.  It  was  his  fate  to  have  a  happy 
(or  unhappy)  thought,  adapted  to  the  humour  and  prac- 
tice of  his  time,  which  was  immediately  caught  up  and 
carried  to  world-wide  issues.  In  himself,  he  was  as 
ordinary  a  character  as  was  ever  thrust  into  greatness. 
For  the  mischief  of  his  thought,  some  of  his  contempor- 
aries were  as  responsible  as  himself — some,  indeed,  more 
blameworthy.  With  Bishop  Butler  I  may  ask,  "  Why 
may  not  whole  communities  be  seized  with  fits  of 
insanity,  as  well  as  individuals  ? "  and  with  him  aver, 
"  Nothing  else  can  account  for  a  great  part  of  what  we 
read  in  history."  The  common  mind  passes  at  times 
into  unwholesome  conditions,  wherein  the  words  of  Paul 
are  exemplified,  "  For  this  cause  shall  God  send  them  a 
strong  delusion,  that  they  should  believe  a  lie." 

Edward  Jenner,  the  son  of  a  clergyman,  was  born  at 
Berkeley,  Gloucestershire,  on  17th  May,  1749.  After 
the  usual  education  of  a  youth  of  his  class,  he  was 
apprenticed  to  Mr.  Ludlow,  surgeon  and  apothecary,  of 
Sodbury,  near  Bristol ;  and  on  the  completion  of  his 
time  (1770)  was  sent  to  London,  where  he  resided  for 
two  years  with  Dr.  John  Hunter,  who  increased  his 


92  VACCINATION. 


means  for  scientific  inquiry  by  the  reception  of  pupils, 
caring  much  more  for  his  menagerie  at  Brompton  than 
for  patients,  and  utilising  his  pupils  as  assistants  in  his 
researches.  Captain  Cook  returned  from  his  first  voyage 
of  discovery  in  1771,  and  his  collection  of  specimens  of 
natural  history  was  assigned  to  Hunter  for  arrangement, 
who  set  Jenner  to  work  upon  them ;  and,  it  is  said,  he 
did  his  duty  so  well  that  he  was  offered  the  appointment 
of  naturalist  in  Cook's  next  expedition.  Jenner  was, 
however,  eager  to  commence  business  as  country  surgeon, 
and  in  1772,  at  the  age  of  23,  he  returned  to  his  native 
vale,  legally  qualified  by  his  experience  at  Sodbury,  and 
his  two  years  with  Hunter,  to  practise  at  discretion  on 
the  good  folk  of  Berkeley. 

It  may  be  said  that  Jenner 's  was  a  poor  sort  of  training 
for  a  medical  man,  but  it  is  to  be  questioned  if  he  lost 
much  by  his  ignorance ;  for  a  century  ago  medical  know- 
ledge was  largely  absurdity,  and  practice  mischief ;  and 
he  did  best  who  stood  most  frequently  helpless  in  the 
presence  of  Nature.  Sir  Benjamin  Brodie  relates  how 
he  served  when  a  young  man  with  a  general  practitioner 
near  Leicester  Square — 

His  treatment  of  disease  seemed  to  be  very  simple.  He  had  in  his 
shop  five  large  bottles,  which  were  labelled  Mistura  Salina,  Mis- 
tura  Cathartica,  Mistura  Astringens,  Mistura  Cinchona,  and 
another,  of  which  I  forget  the  name,  but  it  was  some  kind  of  white 
emulsion  for  coughs ;  and  it  seemed  to  me  that  out  of  these  five 
bottles  he  prescribed  for  two-thirds  of  his  patients.  I  do  not,  how- 
ever, set  this  down  to  his  discredit ;  for  I  have  observed  that  while 
young  members  of  the  medical  profession  generally  deal  in  a  great 
variety  of  remedies,  they  commonly  discard  the  greater  number  of 
them  as  they  grow  older,  until  at  last  their  treatment  of  diseases 
becomes  almost  as  simple  as  that  of  my  .ZEsculapius  of  Little  New- 
port Street.* 

Hunter's  name  is  often  used  as  a  sort  of  consecration 
of  Jenner,  but  for  no  obvious  reason.  Hunter  confirmed, 
if  he  did  not  beget  in  Jenner  a  strong  liking  for  natural 
history ;  and  when  Jenner  was  settled  in  the  country,  he 
often  availed  himself  of  his  services  as  observer  and 

*  Autobiography  of  Sir  B.  C.  Brodie,  p.  38. 


JENNER'S  EARLIER  YEARS.  93 

collector,  writing  to  him  for  information  about  the  habits 
of  the  cuckoo,  the  breeding  of  toads  and  frogs,  and  the 
sexes  of  eels  ;  for  cuckoos'  stomachs,  crows  and  magpies' 
nests,  for  bats,  hedgehogs,  blackbirds,  lizards,  hares,  and 
fossils ;  for  a  cock  salmon,  for  salmon  spawn  and  fry,  for 
a  large  porpoise,  "  for  love  or  money  ;"  for  the  arm  of  a 
certain  patient  when  he  dies ;  suggesting  horrible  experi- 
ments on  hedgehogs,  bats,  and  dogs,  and  describing  one 
of  special  atrocity  upon  an  ass.  The  most  serious  pro- 
position in  their  correspondence  was  that  Jenner  should 
come  to  London  as  a  teacher  of  natural  history,  but 
Hunter  threw  out  the  suggestion  with  hesitation,  the 
qualification  for  the  appointment  being  1000  guineas 
down.  Jenner  had  improved,  or  supposed  he  had 
improved,  the  preparation  of  tartar  emetic,  and  Hunter 
wrote — 

DEAR  JENNER, — I  am  puffing  off  your  tartar  as  the  tartar  of  all 
tartars,  and  have  given  it  to  several  physicians  to  make  a  trial  of, 
but  as  yet  have  had  no  account  of  their  success.  Had  you  not 
better  let  a  bookseller  have  it  to  sell,  as  Glass  of  Oxford  did  his 
magnesia  ?  Let  it  be  called  Jenner's  Tartar  Emetic,  or  anybody's 
else  you  please. 

Hunter  died  in  1793,  and  there  is  no  evidence  that 
Jenner  submitted  to  his  judgment  the  question  of  Vaccina- 
tion, if  even  we  allow  that  prior  to  that  date  the  project 
had  occurred  to  Jenner  himself.  It  is  certain  that  he 
mentioned  to  Hunter  that  country  folk  believed  that  to 
catch  cowpox  was  to  be  secure  from  smallpox,  and  that 
Hunter  repeated  the  fact  in  his  conversation  and  lec- 
tures; but  there  is  no  reference  to  the  matter  in  Hunter's 
writing  and  correspondence. 

It  is  the  habit  of  Jenner's  admirers  to  represent  him  as 
a  patient  investigator  to  whom  a  great  thought  dawned 
in  boyhood,  which  was  brought  forth  in  the  maturity  of 
life.  In  conformity  with  this  legend,  it  is  related  that 
when  an  apprentice  at  Sodbury,  a  young  woman  came  to 
his  master's  surgery,  and  smallpox  being  mentioned,  she 
said,  "  I  cannot  take  that  disease,  for  I  have  had  cowpox ;" 


94:  VACCINATION. 


and  her  observation  was  pondered  in  his  heart ;  whereon 
Dr,  Baron,  his  biographer,  ecstatically  launches  forth — • 

Newton  had  unfolded  his  doctrine  of  light  and  colours  before  he 
was  twenty :  Bacon  wrote  his  Temporis  Partus  Maximus  before 
he  attained  that  age  :  Montesquieu  had  sketched  his  Spirit  of 
Laws  at  an  equally  early  period  of  life :  and  Jenner,  when  he  was 
still  younger,  contemplated  the  possibility  of  removing  from  among 
the  list  of  human  diseases  one  of  the  most  mortal  that  ever  scourged 
our  race.  The  hope  of  doing  this  great  good  never  deserted  him, 
though  he  met  with  many  discouragements ;  his  notions  having 
been  treated  with  scorn  and  ridicule  by  some,  and  with  indifference 
by  almost  all. 

Against  such  a  paragraph  we  may  write,  Sheer 
romance  !  Jenner  was  by  no  means  reticent,  and  that  the 
prevention  of  smallpox  was  for  any  length  of  time  the 
burden  of  his  soul,  nowhere  appears.  The  romance  came 
into  being  after  date  in  order  to  make  much  of  little, 
and  to  justify  payment  in  cash  and  reputation.  For, 
taking  Vaccination  at  the  utmost,  it  was  a  slight  advance 
upon  existent  knowledge  and  practice.  In  the  first  place, 
it  was  a  notorious  belief  in  many  dairy  districts,  that  to 
contract  cowpox  was  equivalent  to  smallpox  in  averting 
a  subsequent  attack  of  smallpox.  In  the  second  place, 
inoculation  with  smallpox  was  the  custom  of  the  time ; 
and  if  infection  with  cowpox  prevented  smallpox,  why 
should  not  inoculation  with  cowpox  do  so  as  effectually 
as  inoculation  with  smallpox  ?  The  intelligence  requisite 
to  reach  a  conclusion  so  obvious  was  not  great,  and 
therefore  it  was  no  cause  for  surprise  that  when  Jenner's 
claim  as  originator  of  Vaccination  was  brought  forward, 
his  priority  should  be  disputed  from  several  quarters  ;  as 
by  Benjamin  Jesty  of  Yetminster,  who  inoculated  his 
wife  and  sons  with  cowpox  in  1774  ;  by  Nash  of  Shaftes- 
bury ;  Mrs.  Kendall,  and  others.  Jenner  was  not  insen- 
sible to  the  force  of  these  claims,  but  evaded  them  under 
the  plea  that  there  was  cowpox  and  cowpox,  and  that  he 
had  discovered  and  defined  the  right  sort. 

In  parts  of  Holstein,  too,  cowpox  was  regarded  as  good 
against  smallpox,  and  on  more  than  one  occasion  was 
deliberately  employed  for  the  purpose.  Plett,  a  village 


JENNER'S  EARLIER  YEARS.  95 

schoolmaster,  near  Kiel,  inoculated  three  children  with 
the  disease  in  1791,  who  were  afterwards  credited  with 
resisting  variolous  infection  in  consequence  of  their 
vaccination.* 

How  thoroughly  the  asserted  prophylaxy  of  cowpox 
was  known,  Jenner  himself  was  accustomed  to  bear 
witness.  He  was  a  member  of  two  clubs,  the  Medico- 
Convivial  which  met  at  Rodborough,  and  the  Convivio- 
Medical  which  met  at  Alveston ;  and  he  used  to  bring 
cowpox  so  persistently  under  discussion,  that,  he  said,  he 
was  threatened  with  expulsion  if  he  did  not  desist.  "  We 
know,"  said  the  jovial  doctors,  "  that  an  attack  of  cow- 
pox  is  reputed  to  prevent  smallpox,  but  we  know  that  it 
does  not,  and  that  should  end  the  matter."f 

In  pursuance  of  the  tactics  that  would  represent 
Vaccination  as  the  outcome  of  the  labour  of  many  years, 
we  have  the  following  extraordinary  narrative  from 
Baron,  Jenner's  biographer — 

It  was  not  till  1780  that  Jenner  was  enabled,  after  much  study 
and  inquiry,  to  unravel  many  of  the  perplexing  obscurities  and 
contradictions  with  which  the  question  of  cowpox  was  enveloped, 
and  which  had  impressed  those  who  knew  the  traditions  of  the 
country  with  the  opinion  that  it  defied  all  accurate  and  satisfactory 
elucidation.  In  the  month  of  May  of  the  year  just  mentioned, 
1780,  he  first  disclosed  his  hopes  and  his  fears,  respecting  the  great 
object  of  his  pursuit,  to  his  friend  Edward  Gardner.  By  this  time 
Jenner's  mind  had  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  reputation  which 
awaited  him,  but  it  was  still  clouded  by  doubts  and  difficulties. 
He  then  seemed  to  feel  that  it  might,  in  God's  good  providence, 
be  his  lot  to  stand  between  the  living  and  the  dead,  and  that 
through  him  a  plague  might  be  stayed.  On  the  other  side,  the 
dread  of  disappointment,  and  the  probability  of  failing  to  accom- 
plish his  purpose,  restrained  that  eagerness  which  otherwise  would 
have  prompted  him  prematurely  to  publish  the  result  of  his 
inquiries,  and  thereby,  probably,  by  conveying  insufficient  know- 
ledge, blight  forever  his  favourite  hope.* 

Many  are  the  marvellous  relations  in  ancient  and 
modern  history,  but  in  the  records  of  the  supernatural 
it  is  questionable  if  there  be  anything  to  match  the  pre- 

*  Simon's  Papers  on  Vaccination,  p.  xii. 
t  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  i.  pp.  48  and  126.     I  Ib.,  vol.  i.  p.  127. 


96  VACCINATION. 


ceding.  Painters  depict  the  runaway  apprentice  listening 
on  Highgate  Hill  to  the  bells  as  they  pealed,  "  Turn 
again  Whittington,  twice  Lord  Mayor  of  London,"  but 
they  might  find  a  finer  subject  in  the  young  Glouces- 
tershire surgeon,  aged  31,  habited  "  in  blue  coat  and 
yellow  buttons,  buckskins,  well  polished  jockey  boots 
with  handsome  silver  spurs,  a  smart  whip  with  silver 
handle,  and  hair  done  up  in  a  club  under  a  broad- 
brimmed  hat,"*  with  eye  fixed  in  vision,  contemplating 
his  glorious  destiny,  through  clouds  of  doubt  and  diffi- 
culty, full  twenty  years  ahead ;  standing  like  another 
Aaron,  censer  in  hand,  between  the  living  and  the  dead 
until  the  plague  was  stayed  !  Verily,  if  we  do  not 
see  miracles,  it  is  because  we  do  not  choose  to  look  for 
them. 

The  chapter  of  the  wonderful  is  not  exhausted ;  yet 
greater  things  remain.  Says  Baron,  and  recollect  the 
year  was  1780  and  Jenner  aged  31 — 

Jenner  was  riding  with  Gardner,  on  the  road  between  Glouces- 
ter and  Bristol,  near  Newport,  when  the  conversation  passed  of 
which  I  have  made  mention.  He  went  over  the  natural  history 
of  cowpox  ;  stated  his  opinion  as  to  the  origin  of  this  affection  from 
the  heel  of  the  horse ;  specified  the  different  sorts  of  disease  which 
attacked  the  milkers  when  they  handled  infected  cows  ;  dwelt 
upon  the  variety  which  afforded  protection  against  smallpox  ;  and 
with  deep  and  anxious  emotion  mentioned  his  hope  of  being  able 
to  propagate  that  variety  from  one  human  being  to  another,  till  he 
had  disseminated  the  practice  all  over  the  globe,  to  the  total 
extinction  of  smallpox" — 

Which  is  to  say,  that  in  1780,  Jenner,  aged  31,  had 
arrived  at  the  conclusion  which  he  offered  to  the  world 
in  1798  at  the  mature  age  of  49  ;  and  in  the  meanwhile 
allowed  mankind  to  perish  from  smallpox,  he  having 
their  salvation  in  his  hands  ! 

The  miraculous  conversation,  says  Baron,  was  con- 
cluded by  Jenner  in  words  to  the  following  effect — 

Gardner,  I  have  entrusted  a  most  important  matter  to  you, 
which  I  firmly  believe  will  prove  of  essential  benefit  to  the  human 
race.  I  know  you,  and  should  not  wish  what  I  have  stated  to  be 

*  Thus  described  by  Gardner.     Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  p.  15. 


JENNER'S  EARLIER  YEARS.  97 

brought  into  conversation  ;  for  should  anything  untoward  turn  up 
in  my  experiments  I  should  be  made,  particularly  by  my  medical 
brethren,  the  subject  of  ridicule — for  I  am  the  mark  they  all 
shoot  at.* 

Gardner,  Jenner's  friend,  who  played  the  part  of  alter 
ego  in  the  asseveration  of  an  early  date  for  Vaccination, 
was  a  dealer  in  wines  and  spirits.  Charity  belie veth  all 
things,  but  even  charity  would  exhibit  a  sceptical  coun- 
tenance when  what  it  is  a  man's  interest  to  prove  and 
have  placed  to  his  credit,  is  in  itself  improbable  ;  which, 
if  true,  might  be  proved  by  documents  and  witnesses  ; 
but  which  is  merely  supported  by  his  own  word  and  that 
of  a  friend.  Let  me  repeat,  there  was  never  a  vestige  of 
evidence  adduced  for  the  revelations  of  1780  beyond  the 
bare  assertions  of  Jenner  and  Gardner ;  and  further, 
that  they  are  radically  at  variance  with  the  tenor  and 
dates  of  Jenner's  first  publication — The  Inquiry  of  1798. 

The  next  date  to  which  we  come  is  1787,  in  which 
year  Jenner  is  represented  as  having  taken  his  nephew, 
George,  into  a  stable  to  look  at  a  horse  with  diseased 
heels — 

"  There,"  said  he,  pointing  to  the  horse's  heels,  "  is  the 
source  of  smallpox.  I  have  much  to  say  on  that  subject, 
which  I  hope  in  due  time  to  give  to  the  world."*)* 

Baron  gives  no  authority  for  this  anecdote.  It  is 
probably  ante-dated  six  or  seven  years. 

In  1788  Jenner  married  Catherine  Kingscote.  In  his 
domestic  relations,  he  was  devotedly  affectionate,  even 
uxorious ;  ready  to  defer  any  duty  and  to  surrender  any 
advantage  to  the  pleasures  of  home. 

As  the  phrase  ran,  Jenner  was  a  good  hand  at  a  "copy  of 
verses,"  and  one  of  these,  "  Signs  of  Rain,"  commencing — 

The  hollow  winds  begin  to  blow, 

The  clouds  look  black,  the  glass  is  low — 

has  a  place  in  nearly  all  poetical  collections. 

In    1792   Jenner   applied   to   the   University   of    St. 

*  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  i.,  pp.  127-129. 
t  Ibid.,  p.  135. 

7 


98  VACCINATION. 


Andrews  for  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Physic.  It  cost 
£15,  and  nothing  more. 

Hunter  used  to  say  to  speculative  pupils,  "  Don't  think, 
but  try  ;  be  patient,  be  accurate ; "  and  Jenner,  in  relation 
to  cowpox,  required  the  advice  ;  for,  by  his  own  account, 
he  was  content  to  think  of  cowpox  for  at  least  a  quarter 
of  a  century,  whilst  he  knew  by  intuition  its  true  origin, 
its  magical  efficacy,  and  future  triumph  without  any 
trial.  His  first  experiment  was  made  in  November, 
1789,  upon  his  son  Edward,  his  first-born,  an  infant  of 
eighteen  months. 

"  He  was  inoculated  with  cowpox  ? " 

0,  no! 

"  Then  with  grease  from  a  horse's  heel  ? " 

Not  at  all! 

"  With  what  then  ? " 

Why,  with  swinepox  ;  and  it  answered  ! 

The  child  sickened  on  the  eighth  day ;  a  few  pustules 
appeared  ;  they  were  late  and  slow  in  their  progress,  and 
small,  but  they  proved  sufficient.  The  poor  child  was 
then  put  through  what  was  styled  the  Variolous  Test : 
not  once  or  twice,  but  five  or  six  times  at  various 
intervals,  he  was  inoculated  with  smallpox  without  other 
obvious  effect  than  local  inflammation  and  erysipelas. 
Nothing  ever  claimed  for  cowpox  turned  out  more 
satisfactorily  than  this  experiment  with  swinepox — 
supposing  we  trust  Jenner. 

Arguing  from  the  records  (and  we  have  nothing  else 
to  argue  from)  it  was  not  until  about  1795  that  Jenner 
turned  his  attention  with  serious  purpose  to  cowpox. 
This  Baron  allows,  saying — 

Many  years  elapsed  before  Jenner  had  an  opportunity  of  com- 
pleting his  projected  experiments  in  Vaccination,  and  he  encoun- 
tered numerous  difficulties  in  carrying  on  the  preliminary  part  of 
his  inquiry.* 

But  Baron  fails  to  specify  what  were  the  projected 
experiments,  or  the  difficulties  which  hindered  their 

*  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  i.,  p.  131. 


JENNER'S  EARLIER  YEARS.  99 

performance.  It  is  a  common  nuisance  in  "sympathetic" 
biographies  to  have  unlimited  drafts  made  upon  one's 
credulity.  The  evidence  of  example  would  go  to  prove 
that  Jenner  placed  his  trust  in  swinepox  rather  than 
cowpox,  at  least  as  late  as  1789. 

In  April,  1795,  a  general  inoculation  took  place  at 
Berkeley  on  Dimsdale's  plan ;  that  is  to  say,  all  in  the 
district  who  had  not  had  smallpox  were  inoculated  with 
the  disease,  so  that  they  might  sicken  together  and  do 
no  mischief.  Among  the  Berkeleyans  was  one  Joseph 
Merret,  who,  1770,  had  attended  horses  with  greasy  heels 
and  at  the  same  time  milked  cows,  and  from  the  cows 
had  contracted  cowpox.  Jenner  inoculated  him  repeat- 
edly with  smallpox  on  this  occasion,  but  with  no  effect ; 
whence  he  concluded  that  the  attack  of  cowpox  in  1770 
had  maintained  Merret  secure  from  smallpox  for  five- 
and-twenty  years.* 

Jenner's  aim  was  now  directed  to  demonstrate  that  the 
common  faith  in  cowpox  as  a  defence  against  smallpox 
was  well-founded  ;  and  to  do  so  it  was  necessary  to  clear 
away  two  objections — 

FIRST,  That  some  who  had  caught  cowpox  had  subse- 
quently suffered  smallpox. 

To  which  he  answered — 

Various  eruptions  occur  on  the  teats  of  cows,  which 
are  confounded  with  cowpox,  and  infect  the  milkers ;  and 
these,  I  admit,  do  not  protect  from  smallpox. 

In  a  letter  to  Edward  Gardner  in  1798  he  remarked — 

The  true  lias  many  imitations  by  the  false  on  the  cow's. udder 
and  nipples ;  and  all  is  called  cowpox  whether  on  the  cow  or  com- 
municated to  the  human,  f 

SECOND,  That  some  who  had  contracted  true  cowpox 
had  nevertheless  fallen  victims  to  smallpox. 
To  which  he  answered — 
Admitted :  but  then  the  milker  had  not  received  in- 


*  Jenner's  Inquiry,  case  i.,  p.  9. 

t  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  i.,  p.  297. 


100 


VACCINATION. 


fection  from  the  cow  at  the  proper  time,  but  at  a  stage 
of  the  eruption  too  early  or  too  late. 

If  the  reader  will  set  these  points  clearly  before  him, 
he  will  have  the  measure  of  Jenner's  claim.  It  was  a 
claim  to  define  the  truth  there  was  in  a  popular  belief — 
not  to  make  an  independent  discovery. 

Jenner  at  this  juncture  had  staked  his  hope  on  the 
identification  of  horsegrease  with  cowpox.  Yet  even  in 
this  identification  he  does  not  seem  to  have  been  original. 

It  was  a  persuasion  among  the  farmers  that  pox  on 
the  cows  was  derived  from  grease  on  the  horse ;  and 
that  infection  with  horsegrease  was  just  as  good  against 
smallpox  as  infection  with  its  derivative  cowpox.  The 
fact,  however,  of  this  derivation  of  cowpox  from  horse- 
grease  was  contested,  but  Jenner  was  positive.  Writing 
in  1794  he  said— 

At  our  last  meeting  our  friend  treated  my  discovery  of  the  origin 
of  cowpox  as  chimerical.  Farther  investigation  has  convinced  me 
of  the  truth  of  my  assertion  beyond  the  possibility  of  a  denial.  * 

Challenged  to  produce  direct  evidence  that  grease  from 
the  horse  produced  pox  in  the  cow,  he  met  with  con- 
siderable difficulty,  so  that  on  2nd  August,  1797,  he  had 
to  write — 

The  simple  experiment  of  applying  the  matter  from  the  heel  of 
the  horse,  in  its  proper  state,  to  the  nipples  of  the  cows,  when  they 
are  in  a  proper  state  to  be  infected  by  it,  is  not  so  easily  made  as 
at  first  sight  may  be  imagined.  After  waiting  with  impatience  for 
months  in  my  own  neighbourhood,  without  effect,  I  sent  a  messen- 
ger to  Bristol,  in  vain,  to  procure  the  true  virus.  I  even  procured 
a  young  horse,  kept  him  constantly  in  the  stable,  and  fed  him  with 
beans  in  order  to  make  his  heels  swell,  but  to  no  purpose,  f 

In  the  matter  of  horsegrease,  it  is  to  be  observed  as 
Dr.  Mason  Good  informs  us,  "  that  for  ages  blacksmiths 
and  farriers,  who  had  been  infected  with  grease,  were 
considered  as  generally  insusceptible  of  variolous  con- 
tagion." J  Wherefore,  to  Jenner  is  not  to  be  ascribed 
the  discovery  of  horsegrease  as  good  against  smallpox ; 

*  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  i,  p.  136.     t  Ibid.  p.  141. 
J  Study  of  Medicine,  vol.  iii.  p.  59,  3rd  ed.     London,  1829. 


JENNER'S  EARLIER  YEARS.  101 

but  merely  that  he  held  with  certain  farmers  that  it  was 
the  cause  of  cowpox,  and  one  in  constitution  with  cowpox; 
and  thus  endeavoured  to  combine  the  tradition  of  the 
stable  with  that  of  the  dairy. 

It  was  not  until  1796  that  Jenner  made  any  experiment 
with  cowpox — up  to  that  date,  whatever  his  visions,  he 
was  in  Hunter's  phrase  a  thinker,  not  a  trier.  On  14th 
May  of  that  year,  he  took  matter  from  the  hand  of  Sarah 
Nelmes,  who  had  been  infected  by  her  master's  cows,  and 
inserted  it  by  two  incisions  in  the  arm  of  James  Phipps, 
a  child  of  eight  years  of  age.  The  boy  went  through  the 
disease  in  a  regular  manner,  and  on  the  1st  July  was  in- 
oculated with  smallpox  without  effect,  to  Jenner's  intense 
satisfaction.  He  communicated  the  event  to  Gardner  in 
the  following  letter — 

BERKELEY,  19th  July,  1796. 

DEAR  GARDNER, — As  I  promised  to  let  you  know  how  I  proceeded 
in  my  inquiry  into  the  nature  of  that  singular  disease  the  Cowpox, 
and  being  fully  satisfied  how  much  you  feel  interested  in  its  success, 
you  will  be  gratified  in  hearing  that  I  have  at  length  accomplished 
what  I  have  been  so  long  waiting  for,  the  passing  of  the  Vaccine 
Virus  from  one  human  being  to  another  by  the  ordinary  mode  of 
inoculation. 

A  boy  of  the  name  of  Phipps  was  inoculated  in  the  arm  from  the 
pustule  on  the  hand  of  a  young  woman  who  was  infected  by  her 
master's  cows.  Having  never  seen  the  disease  but  in  its  casual 
way  before,  that  is  when  communicated  from  the  cow  to  the  hand 
of  the  milker,  I  was  astonished  at  the  close  resemblance  of  the 
pustules,  in  some  of  their  stages,  to  the  variolous  pustules. 

But  now  listen  to  the  most  delightful  part  of  my  story.  The 
boy  has  since  been  inoculated  for  the  smallpox,  which,  as  I  ventured 
to  predict,  produced  no  effect.  I  shall  now  pursue  my  experiments 
with  redoubled  ardour. 

But  the  experiments  could  not  be  pursued,  for,  from 
July,  1796  till  the  spring  of  1798,  Cowpox  disappeared 
from  the  dairies  around  Berkeley,  and,  as  we  have  seen, 
horsegrease  was  also  unattainable.  Jenner  had,  how- 
ever, resolved  on  publication.  Life  was  advancing;  he 
had  made  no  mark  in  the  world ;  and,  as  he  wrote  to 
Gardner — 

Added  to  all  my  other  cares,  I  am  touched  hard  with  the  reigning 
epidemic — Impecuniosity. 


102  VACCINATION. 


At  first  he  proposed  to  embody  his  views  in  a  paper 
for  the  Royal  Society,  but  on  second  thoughts  determined 
to  issue  a  pamphlet.  Having  read  his  manuscript  to  Dr. 
Worthington,  Mr.  Paytherus,  and  Mr.  H.  Hicks,  assembled 
round  the  table  of  Mr.  Thomas  Westfaling,  at  Rudhall, 
near  Ross,  Herefordshire,  and  having  secured  their  ap- 
proval, the  matter  was  put  to  press,  and  about  the  end 
of  June,  1798,  appeared — 

AN 

INQUIRY 

INTO 

THE  CAUSES  AND  EFFECTS 

OF  THE 

VARIOLA     VACCINE, 
A  DISEASE 

DISCOVERED  IN  SOME  OF  THE  WESTERN  COUNTIES  OF  ENGLAND, 
PARTICULARLY 

GLOUCESTERSHIRE, 

AND  KNOWN  BY  THE  NAME   OF 

THE  COW  POX. 


JENNER'S  INQUIRY,  1798.  103 

CHAPTER  II. 

JENNER'S  INQUIRY,    1798. 

The  curious  tradition  among  the  dairy  folk  of  Gloucestershire, 
that  persons  who  had  suffered  from  Cowpox  were  thereby  rendered 
insusceptible  of  Smallpox,  was  made  known  to  Edward  Jenner 
when  a  doctor's  apprentice,  and  was  never  afterwards  absent  from 
his  mind.  Thirty  years  elapsed  before  the  fruit  was  borne  to  the 
public ;  but  incessantly  he  thought,  and  watched,  and  experimented 
on  the  subject,  and  the  work  in  which  at  length  he  recorded  the 
incomparable  results  of  his  labour  may  well  have  commanded  the 
confidence  of  reflecting  persons. 

Little  would  ever  be  heard  of  objections  to  Vaccination,  if  all  who 
undertake  the  responsibility  of  its  performance,  and  all  who  feel 
disposed  to  resist  its  adoption,  would  but  thoroughly  study  that 
masterpiece  of  medical  induction,  and  imitate  the  patience  and 
caution  and  modesty  with  which  Jenner  laid  the  foundations  of 
every  statement  he  advanced. 

In  the  first  Inquiry  into  the  Causes  and  Effects  of  the  Variola 
Vaccince,  Jenner  set  on  a  scientific  basis  the  popular  belief  to  which 
I  have  referred ;  and  the  close  of  the  18th  Century,  which  had 
much  to  darken  it,  will  be  remembered  till  the  end  of  human  history 
for  the  greatest  physical  good  ever  yet  given  by  science  to  the 
world. — Papers  relating  to  ihe  History  and  Practice  of  Vaccina- 
tion. Pp.  xi.  and  xii.  London,  1857. 

THESE  are  the  words  of  Mr.  John  Simon,  and  in  them 
we  have  the  Jennerian  legend  with  the  morsel  of  fact 
to  the  mass  of  fable  which  characterises  legendary  matter, 
ancient  and  modern.  The  recommendation  to  "  study 
thoroughly  that  master-piece  of  medical  induction," 
Jenner's  Inquiry,  is  a  mere  flourish  of  panegyric ;  for, 
as  Mr.  Simon  was  well  aware,  the  book  had  been  out  of 
print  for  half  a  century,  and  was  practically  inaccessible ; 
whilst  its  reproduction  has  usually  been  considered  unde- 
sirable in  the  interests  of  Vaccination,  inasmuch  as  it 
reveals  more  than  is  expedient  for  common  knowledge. 
An  idol  that  is  good  to  swear  by  is  always  fortified  by 
a  convenient  obscurity. 

The  Inquiry  is  a  quarto  of  less  than  seventy  pages  in 
large  type,  set  in  broad  margins  in  the  grand  style  of  the 


104  VACCINATION. 

period,  and  illustrated  with  four  coloured  plates.  There 
are  eight  pages  of  Introductory  Matter,  followed  by 
thirty-four  pages  of  Cases,  concluding  with  twenty-six 
pages  of  General  Observations. 

It  is  to  the  Cases  as  the  ground  of  the  argument,  that 
I  would  first  direct  attention.  They  are  twenty-three, 
and  may  be  thus  assorted — 

13  of  Cowpox  communicated  by  accident. 
4  of    Horsegrease    communicated   by   accident   and 

inoculated  by  design. 
6  of  Cowpox  inoculated  by  design  or  transferred  from 

arm-to-arm. 

It  may  be  tedious,  but  I  should  like  to  go  with  the 
reader  over  these  Cases,  for  they  are  highly  instructive. 
Let  us  take  the  first  twelve  of  Cowpox  communicated 
by  accident. 

I. — JOSEPH  MERRET,  Gardener. 

In  1770  attended  to  Horses,  milked  Cows,  and  caught 
Cowpox.  Afterwards  his  family  had  Smallpox,  but  he 
escaped.  In  1795  Jenner  repeatedly  inoculated  him  with 
Smallpox  without  effect. 

II. — SARAH  PORTLOCK,  Farm  Servant. 

In  1771  had  Cowpox.  In  1792  nursed  her  child  in 
Smallpox  "  conceiving  herself  secure,"  and  was  at  the 
same  time  inoculated  with  Smallpox  in  both  arms  with- 
out effect. 

III. — JOHN  PHILLIPS,  Tradesman. 

Had  Cowpox  when  nine  years  old.  Was  inoculated 
with  Smallpox  by  Jenner  at  the  age  of  62  without 
effect. 

IV. — MARY  BARGE,  Farm  Servant. 

In  1767  had  Cowpox.  In  1791  was  inoculated  with 
Smallpox  without  effect.  Had  also  acted  as  nurse  to 
Smallpox  patients  without  catching  the  disease. 


JENNER'S  INQUIRY,  1798.  105 

Y. — MRS.  H ,  Gentlewoman. 

Had  Cowpox  when  very  young,  contracted  by  handling 
dairy  utensils.  Was  subsequently  exposed  to  Smallpox, 
"  where  it  was  scarcely  possible  for  her  to  have  escaped ;" 
and  in  1778  was  inoculated  with  Smallpox  by  Jenner 
without  effect. 

At  this  point,  I  would  draw  attention  to  the  ages  of 
the  persons  set  forth  in  these  Cases :  they  were  past 
middle  life  when  the  susceptibility  to  Smallpox  was  either 
low  or  extinct.  The  reason  given  by  Jenner  for  their 
production  was  that  he  "  wished  to  show  that  the  change 
produced  in  the  constitution  by  Cowpox  is  not  affected 
by  time  " — a  claim  which  vaccinators  at  this  day  sur- 
render, insisting  on  the  necessity  of  re-vaccination  to 
maintain  "the  benign  influence;"  but  apart  from  that 
consideration,  there  was  nothing  extraordinary  in  resist- 
ance to  inoculated  Smallpox.  Without  the  intervention 
of  Cowpox,  inoculators  were  constantly  meeting  patients 
who  would  not  "  take,"  even  with  repeated  attempts, 
and  especially  among  elderly  people;  and  some  who 
obstinately  resisted  inoculated  Smallpox,  subsequently 
contracted  the  disease  in  the  ordinary  way.  So  much 
Jenner  himself  allowed,  saying — 

There  are  many  who  from  some  peculiarity  in  habit  resist  the 
common  effects  of  variolous  matter  inserted  into  the  skin,  and  in 
consequence  are  haunted  through  life  with  the  distressing  idea  of 
being  insecure  from  subsequent  infection.  (P.  60.) 

Yet  he  was  pleased  to  refer  this  well  recognised  resist- 
ance to  variolation  in  those  who  had  had  Cowpox  to 
Cowpox,  allowing  nothing  for  habit  of  body ! 

VI. — SARAH  WYNNE,  Dairymaid. 

In  1796  had  Cowpox  in  May,  and  "  in  so  violent  a 
degree,  that  she  was  confined  to  her  bed,  and  rendered 
incapable  for  several  days  of  pursuing  her  ordinary 
vocation."  On  28th  March,  1797,  she  was  inoculated 
with  Smallpox  by  Jenner  without  effect. 


VACCINATION. 


Under  this  Case  Jenner  observes,  that  "  among  our 
dairy  farmers  those  who  have  had  Smallpox  either  escape 
Cowpox,  or  are  disposed  to  have  it  slightly ;  and  as  soon 
as  the  complaint  shows  itself  among  cattle,  assistants  are 
procured,  if  possible,  who  are  thus  rendered  less  suscep- 
tible of  it,  otherwise  the  business  of  the  farm  could 
scarcely  go  forward."  At  the  farm  where  Sarah  Wynne 
was  employed,  all  had  had  Smallpox  except  Sarah,  and 
all  save  Sarah,  escaped. 

VII. — WILLIAM  RODWAY,  Dairyman. 

In  1796  had  Cowpox.  In  1797  was  inoculated  with 
Smallpox  by  Jenner  without  effect. 

Under  Rodway's  Case  Jenner  showed  that  the  farmers 
were  at  fault  in  supposing  that  Smallpox  kept  off  Cow- 
pox.  In  the  dairy  where  Rodway  was  employed,  all  the 
milkers  had  passed  through  Smallpox,  except  Rodway, 
and  all  contracted  Cowpox ;  "  but  there  was  no  compari- 
son in  the  severity  of  the  disease  as  it  was  felt  by  them 
and  by  Rodway.  While  he  was  confined  to  bed,  they 
were  able,  without  much  inconvenience,  to  follow  their 
ordinary  business."  Thus  Jenner  argued  that  though 
Smallpox  might  not  keep  off  Cowpox,  it  made  Cowpox 
milder. 

VIII. — ELIZABETH  WYNNE,  Dairymaid. 

"In  1759  had  Cowpox  slightly  when  19  years  of  age. 
"  As  the  malady  had  shown  itself  in  so  slight  a  manner," 
observed  Jenner,  "  and  as  it  had  taken  place  at  so  distant 
a  period  of  her  life,  I  was  happy  with  the  opportunity 
of  trying  the  effects  of  variolous  matter  upon  her  con- 
stitution, and  on  the  28th  of  March,  1797.  I  inoculated 
her  "  without  effect.  Nevertheless  in  the  following  year, 
1798,  she  again  caught  Cowpox,  having  a  "large  pustulous 
sore "  accompanied  with  "  general  lassitude,  shiverings, 
alternating  with  heat,  coldness  of  extremities,  and  a  quick 
and  irregular  pulse." 

IX. — WILLIAM  SMITH,  Farm  Servant. 
Although   [wrote  Jenner  as  preface  to  this  Case]   the  Cowpox 


JENNER'S  INQUIRY,  1798.  107 

shields  the  constitution  from  the  Smallpox,  and  the  Smallpox  proves 
a  protection  against  its  own  poison,  yet  it  appears  that  the  human 
body  is  again  and  again  susceptible  of  the  infectious  matter  of  the 
Cowpox. 

In  1780,  when  attending  to  Horses  with  sore  heels, 
Smith  conveyed  the  equine  infection  to  Cows,  "  and  from 
the  Cows  it  was  communicated  to  Smith.  In  1791,  the 
Cowpox  broke  out  at  another  farm  where  he  then  lived 
as  a  servant,  and  he  became  affected  with  it  a  second 
time ;  and  in  1794  he  was  so  unfortunate  as  to  catch  it 
again.  The  disease  was  equally  as  severe  the  second  and 
third  time  as  it  was  on  the  first."  He  was  twice  inocu- 
lated with  Smallpox  in  1795,  and  exposed  to  Smallpox 
without  effect. 

X.— SIMON  NICHOLS,  Farm  Servant. 

In  1782  was  employed  in  dressing  the  sore  heels  of 
Horses,  and  at  the  same  time  assisted  in  milking  Cows, 
thereby  infecting  them  and  generating  Smallpox.  Chang- 
ing his  situation,  he  communicated  the  disease  to  other 
Cows,  and  was  himself  severely  affected.  Some  years 
afterwards,  he  was  inoculated  with  Smallpox  by  Jenner 
without  effect. 

XL — WILLIAM  STINCHCOMB,  Farm  Servant. 

In  1782  had  Cowpox  severely  on  the  same  farm  with 
Nichols.  In  1792  he  was  inoculated  with  Smallpox 
along  with  a  large  party,  but  in  his  case  without  result. 
"  During  the  sickening  of  some  of  his  companions,  their 
symptoms  so  strongly  recalled  to  his  mind  his  own  state 
when  sickening  with  the  Cowpox,  that  he  very  perti- 
nently remarked  their  striking  similarity." 

XII. — HESTER  WALKLEY,  Farm  Servant. 

In  1782  had  Cowpox  when  she  was  attended  by  Jenner. 
In  1795  she,  and  seven  other  pauper  women  of  Tortsworth, 
who  also  had  had  Cowpox,  were  inoculated  with  Small- 
pox by  Henry  Jenner  without  effect.  "This  state  of 
security  proved  a  fortunate  circumstance,"  observed 


108  VACCINATION. 


Jenner,  "  as  many  of  the  poor  women  were  at  the  same 
time  in  a  state  of  pregnancy."  Why  then,  it  might  have 
been  asked,  did  Henry  Jenner  try  to  variolate  them  ? 

These  Twelve  Cases  illustrate  Jenner's  procedure ;  and 
those  familiar  with  scientific  methods,  and  the  scrutiny 
and  caution  requisite  to  arrive  at  trustworthy  physio- 
logical data,  will  view  with  some  astonishment  his  free 
and  easy  induction.  In  the  majority  of  the  Cases  he  was 
without  proof  that  his  subjects  had  suffered  Cowpox; 
and  the  absence  of  this  certainty  was  the  more  remark- 
able as  he  knew  that  the  dairy-folk  described  as  Cowpox 
several  varieties  of  eruption.  The  same  rural  observers 
who  held  that  Cowpox  averted  Smallpox,  also  held  that 
Smallpox  averted  Cowpox;  and  yet  Jenner  had  to  show 
in  Rodway's  Case  No.  vii.,  that  they  were  mistaken; 
although,  granting  the  thesis  that  Smallpox  and  Cowpox 
were  equivalents  and  mutually  preventive,  the  rural 
faith  ought  to  have  stood  justified,  and  Smallpox  shown 
to  be  good  against  Cowpox.  Again  Jenner  allowed  that 
an  attack  of  Cowpox  did  not  prevent  a  subsequent  attack 
of  Cowpox,  saying — 

It  is  singular  to  observe  that  the  Cowpox  virus,  although  it  renders 
the  constitution  insusceptible  of  the  variolous,  should  nevertheless 
leave  it  unchanged  with  respect  to  its  own  action. 

Singular  indeed !  The  observation  in  presence  of  the 
principle  to  be  established  was  nothing  short  of  imbecile. 
If  Smallpox  prevented  Smallpox,  and  Cowpox  was  one 
with  Smallpox,  and  Cowpox  did  not  avert  Cowpox,  how 
was  Cowpox  to  avert  Smallpox  ?  The  insusceptibility 
of  Jenner's  subjects  to  variolous  inoculation  was,  as 
observed,  of  little  account.  Resistance  to  inoculated 
Smallpox  was  of  common  occurrence,  and  inoculators 
practised  various  dodges  to  overcome  it.  To  have  made 
such  experiments  approximately  conclusive  would  have 
required  the  inoculation  with  Smallpox  of  subjects  of 
corresponding  ages  and  temperaments  who  had  not  passed 
through  Cowpox ;  and  the  probability  is  that  the  results 
would  not  have  been  dissimilar. 


JENNER'S  INQUIRY,  1798.  109 

We  must  not,  however,  proceed  farther  until  Cowpox 
is  described;  and  for  that  purpose  I  cannot  do  better 
than  cite  Jenner  verbatim. 

JENNER'S  DESCRIPTION  or  COWPOX. 

Cowpox  appears  on  the  nipples  of  the  Cows  in  the  form  of  ir- 
regular pustules.  At  their  first  appearance  they  are  commonly 
a  palish  blue,  or  rather  of  a  colour  somewhat  approaching  to  livid, 
and  are  surrounded  by  an  inflammation.  These  pustules,  unless 
a  timely  remedy  be  applied,5-  frequently  degenerate  into  phagedenic 
[spreading]  ulcers,  which  prove  extremely  troublesome.  The 
animals  become  indisposed,  and  the  secretion  of  milk  is  much 
lessened. 

Inflamed  spots  now  begin  to  appear  on  different  parts  of  the 
hands  of  the  domestics  employed  in  milking,  and  sometimes  on 
the  wrists,  which  run  on  to  suppuration,  first  assuming  the  appear- 
ance of  the  small  vesications  produced  by  a  burn.  Most  commonly 
they  appear  about  the  joints  of  the  fingers,  and  at  their  extremi- 
ties ;  but  whatever  parts  are  affected,  if  the  situation  will  admit, 
these  superficial  suppurations  put  on  a  circular  form,  with  their 
edges  more  elevated  than  their  centres,  and  of  a  colour  distantly 
approaching  to  blue.  Absorption  takes  place,  and  tumours  appear 
in  each  axilla  [arm-pit] . 

The  system  becomes  affected,  the  pulse  is  quickened ;  shiverings, 
succeeded  by  heat,  general  lassitude  and  pains  about  the  loins  and 
limbs,  with  vomiting,  come  on.  The  head  is  painful,  and  the 
patient  is  now  and  then  even  affected  with  delirium.  (P.  3.) 

And  Jenner  might  have  added,  with  convulsions. 
Having  drawn  this  alarming  picture  of  the  effects  of 
Cowpox,  he  interposes — 

These  symptoms  arise  principally  from  the  irritation  of  the  sores, 
and  not  from  the  primary  action  of  the  vaccine  virus  upon  the  con- 
stitution. (P.  5.) 

If  Cowpox  meant  ail  this,  some  might  prefer,  at  least, 
the  risk  of  Smallpox;  hence  the  judicious  explanation— 
the  irritation  of  the  sores,  and  not  the  poison  in  the 
blood,  was  the  cause  of  the  distressing  symptoms. 
Jenner  went  on — 

These  symptoms,  varying  in  their  degrees  of  violence,  generally 
continue  from  one  day  to  three  or  four,  leaving  ulcerated  sores 

*  Such  timely  remedies  were  solutions  of  sulphate  of  zinc  or  sulphate 
of  copper — a  hint  for  those  in  quest  of  antidotes  for  Vaccination. 


VACCINATION. 


about  the  hands,  which,  from  the  sensibility  of  the  parts,  are  very 
troublesome,  and  commonly  heal  slowly,  frequently  becoming 
phagedenic,  like  those  from  whence  they  sprang.  During  the 
progress  of  the  disease,  the  lips,  nostrils,  eyelids,  and  other  parts 
of  the  body,  are  sometimes  affected  with  sores ;  but  these  evidently 
arise  [How  evidently  ?]  from  their  being  heedlessly  rubbed  or 
scratched  with  the  patient's  infected  fingers.  (P.  5.) 

It  was  this  serious  disease,  this  communicated  Cowpox, 
which  the  subjects  of  the  foregoing  Cases  were  assumed 
to  have  passed  through ;  and  Jenner,  in  conformity  with 
the  opinion  of  the  dairies,  held  that  they  were  thereby 
rendered  proof  against  Smallpox.  Whilst  his  Twelve 
Cases  make  a  show  of  inquiry,  they  bear  no  trace  of 
extensive  or  critical  research.  In  the  general  inocu- 
lations then  prevalent,  those  who  had  undergone  Cow- 
pox  were  not  treated  as  protected  (as  were  those  who 
had  had  Smallpox)  but  were  "  cut "  with  their  neighbours 
— as,  in  Case  xii.,  were  the  eight  cowpoxed  paupers  of 
Tortworth.  Yet  Jenner  was  at  no  pains  to  collect  and 
set  forth  the  evidence  of  other  Gloucestershire  practi- 
tioners, who,  in  the  course  of  duty,  must  have  known  as 
much  of  Cowpox  as  himself,  and  might  have  set  scores 
of  Cases  alongside  his  perfunctory  dozen. 

Having  perused  Jenner's  description  of  Cowpox,  let 
us  now  turn  to  his  account  of  its  origin. 

GENEKATION   OF   COWPOX   IN   HORSEGREASE. 

There  is  a  disease  to  which  the  Horse,  from  his  state  of  domestica- 
tion, is  frequently  subject.  The  Farriers  have  termed  it  THE  GREASE. 
It  is  an  inflammation  and  swelling  in  the  heel,  accompanied  in  its 
commencement  with  small  cracks  or  fissures,  from  which  issues  a 
limpid  fluid,  possessing  properties  of  a  peculiar  kind.  This  fluid 
seeins  capable  of  generating  a  disease  in  the  human  body  (after  it 
has  undergone  the  modification  I  shall  presently  speak  of)  which 
bears  so  strong  a  resemblance  to  the  Smallpox,  that  I  think  it 
highly  probable  it  may  be  the  source  of  that  disease. 

In  this  Dairy  Country  a  great  number  of  Cows  are  kept,  and 
the  office  of  milking  is  performed  indiscriminately  by  Men  and 
Maid  Servants.  One  of  the  former  having  been  appointed  to  apply 
dressings  to  the  heels  of  a  Horse  affected  with  the  malady  I  have 
mentioned,  and  not  paying  due  attention  to  cleanliness,  incautiously 
bears  his  part  in  milking  the  Cows,  with  some  particles  of  the 
infectious  matter  adhering  to  his  fingers.  When  this  is  the  case, 


JENNER'S  INQUIRY,  1798.  Ill 

it  frequently  happens  that  a  disease  is  communicated  to  the  Cows, 
and  from  the  Cows  to  the  Dairy-maids,  which  spreads  through  the 
farm  until  most  of  the  cattle  and  domestics  feel  its  unpleasant  con- 
sequences. This  disease  has  obtained  the  name  of  THE  COWPOX. 
Thus  the  disease  makes  its  progress  from  the  Horse  (as  I  con- 
ceive) to  the  nipples  of  the  Cow,  and  from  the  Cow  to  the  Human 
Subject.  (Pp.  2  and  6.) 

This  conception  of  the  origin  and  progress  of  the 
disease  was  not  Jenner's  specially:  he  shared  it  with 
the  farmers  to  whom  it  was  a  novelty-- 

The  rise  of  Cowpox  in  this  country  may  not  have  been  of  very 
remote  date,  as  the  practice  of  milking  Cows  might  formerly  have 
been  in  the  hands  of  women  only ;  which  I  believe  is  the  case  now 
in  some  other  dairy  countries;  and  consequently  that  the  Cows 
might  not  in  former  times  have  been  exposed  to  the  contagious 
matter  brought  by  the  men  servants  from  the  heels  of  Horses. 
Indeed  a  knowledge  of  the  source  of  infection  is  new  in  the  minds 
of  most  of  the  farmers  in  this  neighbourhood,  but  has  at  length 
produced  good  consequences ;  and  it  seems  probable  from  the  pre- 
cautions they  are  disposed  to  adopt,  that  the  appearance  of  the 
Cowpox  here  may  either  be  entirely  extinguished  or  become  ex- 
tremely rare.  (P.  56.) 

Thus  Cowpox  was  to  be  extinguished  by  forbidding 
milkers  to  handle  Horses'  greasy  heels.  Jenner  himself 
tried  to  produce  Cowpox  in  the  manner  described,  but 
without  success — 

It  is  very  easy  [he  wrote]  to  procure  pus  from  old  sores  on  the 
heels  of  Horses.  This  I  have  often  inserted  into  scratches  made 
with  a  lancet  on  the  sound  nipples  of  Cows,  and  have  seen  no  other 
effects  from  it  than  simple  inflammation.  (P.  45.) 

What  was  requisite  for  success,  he  concluded,  was  the 
limpid  fluid  from  the  Horse's  heel  at  an  early  stage  of 
the  disease,  and  that  it  should  be  applied  to  the  Cow's 
nipples  at  a  certain  season — 

The  virus  from  the  Horses'  heels  is  most  active  at  the  com- 
mencement of  the  disease,  even  before  it  has  acquired  a  pus-like 
appearance ;  indeed  I  am  not  confident  whether  this  property  in 
the  matter  does  not  entirely  cease  as  soon  as  it  is  secreted  in  the 
form  of  pus.  I  am  induced  to  think  it  does  cease,  and  that  it  is 
the  thin  darkish-looking  fluid  only,  oozing  from  the  newly  formed 
cracks  in  the  heels,  similar  to  what  sometimes  appears  from  ery- 
sipelatous  blisters,  which  gives  the  disease.  Nor  am  I  certain  that 
the  nipples  of  the  Cows  are  at  all  times  in  a  state  to  receive  the 


112  VACCINATION. 


infection.  The  appearance  of  the  disease  in  the  spring  and  the 
early  part  of  the  summer,  when  they  are  disposed  to  he  affected 
with  spontaneous  eruptions  so  much  more  frequently  than  at  other 
seasons,  induces  me  to  think,  that  the  virus  from  the  Horse  must 
be  received  upon  them  when  they  are  in  this  state  in  order  to  pro- 
duce effects.  Experiments,  however,  must  determine  these  points. 
(P.  45.) 

Whilst  thus  explicit  as  to  what  was  requisite  for  the 
infection  of  the  Cow  by  the  Horse,  Jenner  did  not  suc- 
ceed in  producing  Cowpox  from  Horsegrease.  He  had 
to  write — 

The  spring  of  the  year  1797,  which  I  intended  particularly  to 
have  devoted  to  the  completion  of  this  investigation,  proved  from 
its  dryness  remarkably  adverse  to  my  wishes.  No  Cowpox  appeared 
in  the  neighbourhood ;  for  it  most  frequently  happens  that  while 
the  farmers'  Horses  are  exposed  to  the  cold  rains  of  spring  their 
heels  become  diseased.  (P.  44.) 

Yet  without  proof,  he  argued  as  if  he  had  proof,  say- 
ing— 

With  respect  to  the  opinion  adduced,  that  the  source  of  the  in- 
fection is  a  peculiar  morbid  matter  arising  in  the  Horse,  although 
I  have  not  been  able  to  prove  it  from  actual  experiments  conducted 
immediately  under  my  own  eye,  yet  the  evidence  I  have  adduced 
appears  sufficient  to  establish  it.  (P.  43.) 

Evidence  adduced !  Of  evidence  there  was  none. 
The  farmers  might  be  right  in  their  opinion  that  Cow- 
pox  sprang  from  Horsegrease,  but  opinion  was  not 
evidence,  nor  even  such  assurance  as  this  of  Jenner 's — 

I  feel  no  room  for  hesitation  respecting  the  common  origin  of 
the  disease,  being  well  convinced  that  it  never  appears  among  the 
Cows  unless  they  have  been  milked  by  some  who  at  the  same  time 
has  the  care  of  a  Horse  affected  with  diseased  heels.  (P.  44.) 

But  not  even  to  this  conviction  did  he  adhere.  "  It 
was  highly  probable,"  he  thought,  "  that  not  only  the 
heels  of  the  Horse,  but  other  parts  of  the  body  of  that 
animal,  are  capable  of  generating  the  virus  which  pro- 
duces the  Cowpox  " — 

An  extensive  inflammation  of  the  erysipelatous  kind  appeared 
without  any  apparent  cause  upon  the  upper  part  of  the  thigh  of  a 
sucking  Colt,  the  property  of  Mr.  Millet,  a  farmer  at  Eockhampton, 
the  inflammation  continued  several  weeks,  and  at  length  termin- 


JENNER'S  INQUIRY,  1798.  113 

ated  in  the  formation  of  three  or  four  small  abscesses.  The  inflamed 
parts  were  fomented,  and  dressings  were  applied  by  some  of  the 
same  persons  who  were  employed  in  milking  the  Cows.  The 
number  of  Cows  milked  was  24,  and  the  whole  of  them  had  the 
Cowpox.  The  milkers,  consisting  of  the  farmer's  wife,  a  man  and 
a  maid  servant,  were  infected  by  the  Cows.  The  man  servant  had 

Sreviously  gene  through  the  Smallpox,  and  felt  but  little  of  the 
owpox.     The  servant  maid  had  some  years  before  been  infected 
with  the  Cowpox ;  and  she  also  felt  it  now  in  a  slight  degree.     But 
the  farmer's  wife,  who  had  never  gone  through  either  Smallpox  or 
Cowpox  felt  its  effects  very  severely. 

That  the  disease  produced  upon  the  Cows  by  the  Colt,  and  from 
thence  conveyed  to  those  who  milked  them,  was  the  True  and  not 
the  Spurious  Cowpox,  there  can  be  scarcely  any  room  for  suspicion  ; 
yet  it  would  have  been  more  completely  satisfactory  had  the  effects 
of  variolous  matter  [Inoculation  with  Smallpox]  been  ascertained 
on  the  farmer's  wife ;  but  there  was  a  peculiarity  in  her  situation 
which  prevented  my  making  the  experiment.  (P.  62.) 

Spurious  Cowpox !  What  was  Spurious  Cowpox  ? 
Here  is  Jenner's  answer — 

Pustulous  sores  frequently  appear  spontaneously  on  the  nipples 
of  the  Cows,  and  instances  have  occurred,  though  very  rarely,  of 
the  hands  of  the  servants  employed  in  milking  being  affected  with 
sores  in  consequence,  and  even  of  their  feeling  an  indisposition  from 
absorption.  These  pustules  are  of  a  much  milder  nature  than  those 
which  arise  from  that  contagion  wlaich  constitutes  the  True  Cowpox. 
They  are  always  free  from  the  bluish  or  livid  tint  so  conspicuous  in 
the  pustules  of  that  disease.  No  erysipelas  attends  them,  nor  do 
they  show  any  phagedenic  disposition,  as  in  the  other  case,  but 
quickly  terminate  in  a  scab  without  creating  any  apparent  disorder 
in  the  Cow.  This  complaint  appears  at  various  seasons  of  the  year, 
but  most  commonly  in  the  spring,  when  the  Cows  are  first  taken 
from  their  winter  food  and  fed  with  grass.  It  is  very  apt  to  appear 
also  when  they  are  suckling  their  young.  But  this  disease  is  not 
to  be  considered  as  similar  in  any  respect  to  that  of  which  I  am 
treating,  as  it  is  incapable  of  producing  any  specific  effects  upon 
the  Human  Constitution.  However,  it  is  of  the  greatest  consequence 
to  point  it  out  here,  lest  the  want  of  discrimination  should  occasion 
an  idea  of  security  from  the  infection  of  the  Smallpox,  which  might 
prove  delusive.  (Pp.  7  and  8.) 

Nothing  could  be  more  explicit.     Cowpox  was  of  two 

kinds — True  and  Spurious.     The  Spurious  consisted  of 

pustular   sores   which   appeared   spontaneously  on   the 

nipples  of  Cows,  and  was  of  no  avail  against  Smallpox  : 

8 


114  VACCINATION. 

the  True  Cowpox,  on  the  other  hand,  was  not  a  disease 
of  the  Cow,  but  of  the  Horse  transmitted  to  the  Cow. 

It  is  of  prime  importance  to  bear  this  distinction  in 
mind ;  for  if  it  is  not  borne  in  mind,  much  that  remains 
to  be  told  must  appear  confused  or  unintelligible.  As 
we  have  seen,  it  was  the  belief  of  the  dairymaids  that  if 
they  caught  Cowpox  they  would  never  afterwards  catch 
Smallpox.  Medical  men  in  practice  in  Gloucestershire 
ridiculed  the  dairymaids'  belief.  They  said — 

"We  know  that  such  is  the  dairymaids'  faith,  but 
it  is  mistaken ;  for  we  know  dairymaids  who  have  had 
Cowpox  and  afterwards  had  Smallpox  in  spite  of  their 
Cowpox." 

At  this  point  Jenner  intervened,  saying — 

"  Let  us  distinguish.  Eruptions  contracted  in  milking 
are  indiscriminately  described  as  Cowpox  by  dairy-folk ; 
but  there  is  an  eruption  attended  with  erysipelas  and 
fever  which  has  all  the  virtue  they  claim  for  it.  This 
variety  of  eruption  does  not  originate  on  the  Cow,  but  is 
communicated  to  the  Cow  from  the  Horse.  Thus  the 
dairymaids  are  right  and  they  are  wrong.  They  are 
right  when  the  pox  they  catch  is  derived  from  the  Horse 
through  the  Cow :  they  are  wrong  when  the  pox  they 
catch  originates  on  the  Cow  without  the  Horse.  In  short 
Cowpox  proper  is  of  no  avail  against  Smallpox.  It  is 
Horsegrease  Cowpox  that  is  of  sovereign  and  infallible 
virtue.  Any  maid  who  receives  Horsegrease  Cowpox 
into  her  veins  is,  as  she  believes,  for  ever  after  secure 
from  the  infection  of  Smallpox." 

Let  us  therefore  bear  in  mind  that  Jenner's  prescrip- 
tion was  not  Cowpox  but  HORSEGREASE  COWPOX.  It  is 
a  point  to  be  insisted  upon ;  for,  as  we  shall  see,  it  was 
lost  from  sight,  and  kept  out  of  sight,  to  the  utter  con- 
fusion of  the  question. 

We  now  come  to  Jenner's  Cases  of  Horsegrease — for 
not  only  were  farm-folk  reputed  secure  from  Smallpox 
by  reason  of  Cowpox,  but  farriers  likewise  in  consequence 
of  infection  with  Horsegrease. 


JENNEE'S  INQUIRY,  1798. 


XIII.  —  THOMAS  PEARCE,  son  of  a  Farrier. 

In  consequence  of  dressing  Horses  with  sore  heels  at 
his  father's  when  a  lad,  had  sores  on  his  fingers  which 
suppurated,  and  occasioned  pretty  severe  indisposition. 
Six  years  afterwards,  Jenner  inoculated  him  repeatedly 
with  Smallpox,  but  only  produced  slight  inflammation, 
and  exposed  him  to  the  contagion  of  Smallpox  without 
effect. 

On  this  Case  Jenner  observed  — 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  and  well-known  to  many,  that  we  are 
frequently  foiled  in  our  endeavours  to  communicate  Smallpox  by 
inoculation  to  blacksmiths,  who  in  the  country  are  farriers.  They 
often,  as  in  the  above  instance,  either  resist  the  contagion  entirely, 
or  have  the  disease  anomalously.  Shall  we  not  be  able  now  to 
account  for  this  on  a  rational  principle  ? 

XIV.  —  JAMES  COLE,  Farmer. 

Was  infected  with  Horsegrease  in  the  same  way  as 
Pearce.  Some  years  afterwards  was  inoculated  with 
Smallpox,  but  only  a  few  eruptions  appeared  on  his 
forehead,  which  passed  away  without  maturation. 

XV.  —  ABRAHAM  EIDDIFORD,  Farmer. 

Was  affected  with  very  painful  sores  in  both  hands, 
tumours  in  each  arm-pit,  and  severe  and  general  in- 
disposition, in  consequence  of  dressing  a  Mare  that  had 
sore  heels.  He  was  attended  by  a  surgeon,  who  recog- 
nising a  similarity  of  the  sores  upon  his  hands  with  those 
of  Cowpox,  and  knowing  the  effect  of  Cowpox  on  the 
human  constitution,  assured  him  that  he  never  need  fear 
Smallpox  ;  but,  twenty  years  afterwards,  he  caught  the 
disease,  which  ran  its  regular  course. 

From  these  Cases  Jenner  drew  this  conclusion  — 

Although  the  absorption  of  matter  from  sores  on  the  heels  of 
Horses,  secures,  or  nearly  secures,  the  system  from  variolous  in- 
fection, yet  it  is  possible  that  this  cannot  be  entirely  relied  upon, 
until  a  disease  has  been  generated  by  morbid  matter  from  the  Horse 
on  the  nipple  of  the  Cow,  and  passed  through  that  medium  to  the 
human  subject. 


116  VACCINATION. 


Which  conclusion  he  repeated  thus — 

The  active  quality  of  the  virus  from  the  Horse's  heels  is  greatly 
increased  after  it  has  acted  on  the  nipples  of  the  Cow  ;  as  it  rarely 
happens  that  the  Horse  affects  his  dresser  with  sores  ;  and  as  rarely 
that  a  milkmaid  escapes  infection  when  she  milks  infected  Cows. 
(P.  45.) 

From  this  conclusion,  Jenner  at  a  subsequent  period 
withdrew.  The  virus  from  the  Horse  was  employed  for 
inoculation  without  transmission  through  the  Cow,  and 
with  results  equally  satisfactory.  As  we  shall  find, 
Jenner  used  and  distributed  Equine  Virus  neat,  which 
he  certified  as  "  the  true  and  genuine  life-preserving 
fluid." 

So  far  the  Cases  set  forth  described  no  more  than 
ordinary  Gloucestershire  experience ;  but  we  now  come 
upon  ground  regarded  as  peculiarly  Jennerian. 

XVI. — SAKAH  NELMES,  Dairymaid. 

In  1796  was  infected  with  Cowpox,  receiving  the  virus 
on  a  part  of  her  hand  scratched  by  a  thorn.  From  the 
large  pustulous  sore  on  Sarah's  hand  Jenner,  on  the  14th 
May,  inoculated — 

XVII. — JAMES  PHIPPS,  eight  years  old. 

Said  Jenner, "  The  more  accurately  to  observe  the  pro- 
gress of  the  infection,  I  selected  a  healthy  boy,  about 
eight  years  old,  for  the  purpose  of  INOCULATION  FOR  THE 
COWPOX."  The  matter  was  inserted  into  his  arm  by  two 
incisions,  barely  penetrating  the  cutis,  each  about  half 
an  inch  long.  The  inoculation  "took,"  and  was  followed 
by  a  chill,  loss  of  appetite,  headache,  and  restless  sleep. 
On  the  1st  of  July,  the  poor  lad  was  inoculated  with 
Smallpox,  and  again  several  months  afterwards,  it  is  said, 
without  effect. 

Here  [wrote  Jenner]  my  researches  were  interrupted  till  the 
spring  of  the  year  1798,  when,  from  the  wetness  of  the  early  part 
of  the  season,  many  of  the  farmers'  Horses  were  affected  with  sore 
heels,  in  consequence  of  which  Cowpox  broke  out  among  several  of 
our  dairies,  which  afforded  me  an  opportunity  of  making  further 
observations  upon  the  curious  disease. 


JENNER'S  INQUIRY,  1798.  117 

About  the  latter  end  of  February,  1798,  William 
Haynes  and  Thomas  Virgoe,  having  to  wash  a  Mare  with 
sore  heels,  were  infected  with  Grease,  and  described  their 
sensations  as  much  the  same  as  when  they  were  inocula- 
ted with  Smallpox.  Their  infection  proved  that  if  Grease 
was  good  against  Smallpox,  Smallpox  was  not  good 
against  Grease.  Haynes  was  employed  as  a  milker, 
and  Pox  broke  out  among  his  master's  Cows  about  ten 
days  after  he  had  first  assisted  in  washing  the  Mare's 
heels. 

XVIII. — JOHN  BAKER,  five  years  old. 

Inoculated,  16th  March,  1798,  with  matter  taken  from 
a  pustule  on  the  hand  of  the  aforesaid  Thomas  Virgoe 
poisoned  with  Grease  from  the  Mare's  heels.  "  He  became 
ill  on  the  sixth  day  with  symptoms  similar  to  those  ex- 
cited by  Cowpox,  and  on  the  eighth  was  free  from  in- 
disposition." 

On  this  case  of  Horsegrease  inoculation,  Jenner  ob- 
served— 

We  have  seen  that  the  virus  from  the  Horse  is  not  to  be  relied 
upon  as  rendering  the  system  secure  from  variolous  infection,  but 
that  the  matter  produced  by  it  on  the  nipple  of  the  Cow  is  perfectly 
so.  Whether  the  virus  passing  from  the  Horse  through  the  human 
constitution,  as  in  the  present  instance,  will  produce  a  similar  effect 
remains  to  be  decided.  This  would  have  been  effected,  but  the  boy 
was  rendered  unfit  for  Smallpox  Inoculation  from  having  felt  the 
effects  of  a  contagious  fever  in  a  work-house  soon  after  this  experi- 
ment was  made. 

Mark  the  assumption,  "  The  virus  from  the  Horse  is 
not  to  be  relied  upon  as  rendering  the  system  secure  from 
variolous  infection,  but  the  matter  produced  by  it  on  the 
nipples  of  the  Cow  is  perfectly  so  ! "  Such  was  Jenner's 
method  of  induction !  How  could  he  leave  the  question 
undecided  ?  Why  not  have  waited  until  little  Baker  re- 
covered from  his  fever  ?  or  why  not  have  inoculated 
another  work-house  child  with  Horsegrease  ?  The  true 
sons  of  science  do  not  rush  into  print  in  such  shameless 
deshabille. 


118  VACCINATION. 


XIX. — WILLIAM  SUMMERS,  aged  five  and  a  half. 

Inoculated  16th  March,  1798,  from  the  nipple  of  one 
of  the  Cows  infected  with  Horsegrease  by  Haynes. 
Subsequently  inoculated  with  Smallpox  without  effect. 

XX. — WILLIAM  PEAD,  aged  eight. 

Inoculated,  28th  March,  from  Summers.  Subsequently 
inoculated  with  Smallpox  without  effect. 

XXI. — HANNAH  EXCELL,  aged  seven, 

And  several  children  and  adults  were  inoculated  from 
the  arm  of  Pead  on  5th  April.  "  The  greater  part  of 
them  sickened  on  the  sixth  day,  and  were  well  on  the 
seventh ;  but  in  three  of  the  number  a  secondary  in- 
disposition arose  in  consequence  of  an  extensive  erysipe- 
latous  inflammation  which  appeared  on  the  inoculated 
arms.  By  the  application  of  mercurial  ointment  to  the 
inflamed  parts  (a  treatment  recommended  under  similar 
circumstances  in  the  inoculated  Smallpox)  the  complaint 
subsided  without  giving  much  trouble." 

Excell  was  inoculated  in  three  places  on  her  arm. 
"This,"  said  Jenner,  "was  not  done  intentionally,  but 
from  the  accidental  touch  of  the  lancet,  one  puncture 
being  always  sufficient!'  The  resulting  pustules  so  much 
resembled  those  arising  from  inoculation  with  Smallpox, 
"  that  an  experienced  inoculator  would  scarcely  have  dis- 
covered a  shade  of  difference." 

XXII. — FOUR  CHILDREN. 

On  12th  April, virus  was  taken  from  Hannah  Excell 
and  inserted  in  the  arms  of — 

EGBERT  F.  JENNER,  aged  11  months, 
JOHN  MARKLOVE,        ,,18 
MARY  PEAD,  .,       5  years, 

MARY  JAMES,  „       6     „ 

R.  F.  Jenner  did  not  "  take."  The  arms  of  the  others 
inflamed,  and  Jenner  fearing  erysipelas,  as  in  the  preced- 


JENNER'S  INQUIRY,  1798.  119 

ing  cases,  applied  a  caustic  of  soap  and  quick-lime  to 
Marklove  and  James,  "  which,"  he  says,  "  effectually  an- 
swered my  intention  in  preventing  erysipelas."  The 
disease  was  suffered  to  take  its  course  in  Pead,  and  no 
erysipelas  appeared. 

XXIII. — JOHN  BARGE,  aged  seven. 

Inoculated  from  Mary  Pead,  and  successfully.  Was 
subsequently  inoculated  with  Smallpox  without  effect. 

"  These  experiments,"  said  Jenner,  "  afforded  me  much 
satisfaction ;  they  proved  that  the  matter  in  passing  from 
one  human  subject  to  another,  through  five  gradations, 
lost  none  of  its  original  properties,  John  Barge  being  the 
fifth  who  received  the  infection  successively  from  Wm. 
Summers,  the  boy  to  whom  it  was  communicated  from 
the  Cow." 

These  are  Jenner's  Cases.  In  them  we  have  his 
"  Masterpiece  of  Medical  Induction  " — the  fruit  of  thirty 
years  of  incessant  thought,  of  watching,  and  of  experi- 
ment !  Let  us  carefully  observe  the  dates.  Until  1796, 
when  he  operated  on  Phipps,  he  never  made  an  experi- 
ment in  Horsegrease  Cowpox  Inoculation ;  and  not  until 
the  middle  of  March,  1798,  a  few  weeks  before  going  to 
press  with  the  Inquiry,  did  he  repeat  the  experiment ; 
and  though  his  later  cases  were  complicated  with  erysi- 
pelas, he  did  not  stay  to  dispose  of  the  difficulty  and 
alarm  thereby  excited.  He  got  together  his  scratch  lot 
of  Cases,  as  if  under  some  over-mastering  compulsion, 
and  consigned  the  concern,  crude  and  incomplete,  to  the 
public.  By-and-by  the  hasty  performance  came  to  be 
spoken  of  as  the  result  of  thirty  years  of  incessant 
thought,  of  patient  research,  and  of  unwearied  labour. 
It  is  unnecessary  to  argue  the  matter.  Whilst  there  is 
nothing  too  great  for  the  credulity  of  those  who  are  in 
the  disposition  of  belief,  yet  facts  are  facts,  and  there  is 
the  stone-wall  of  the  Inquiry  with  its  authentic  details 
whereon  to  crack  the  skulls  of  romancers.  In  Jenner's 
story  as  recited  to  the  vulgar,  we  have  the  advantage  of 


120  VACCINATION. 


witnessing  the  development  of  myth  in  the  light  of  our 
own  age  under  our  own  eyes. 

Taking  Jenner's  Inquiry  at  the  utmost,  What  was 
it  ?  A  suggestion  to  substitute  Horsegrease  Cowpox  for 
Smallpox  in  inoculation.  That  was  all.  Beyond  this 
there  was  no  point  of  novelty.  Some  have  credited 
Jenner  with  originating  the  transfer  of  virus  from  arm 
to  arm ;  but  in  this  respect  he  followed  the  example  of 
many  variolators.  There  was  a  mild  form  of  Smallpox 
occasionally  prevalent  in  London  called  "pearly  pox,"  and 
Dr.  Adams  and  others  kept  it  going  from  patient  to 
patient ;  and  the  virus  from  the  body  of  a  healthy  vario- 
lated child  was  in  constant  request  by  timid  folk,  who 
fancied  the  virulence  of  the  original  infection  might 
thereby  be  abated  in  transmission. 

So  much  for  Jenner's  data.  Now  for  a  word  or  two 
as  to  the  speculation  that  invested  his  prescription. 

He  considered  that  some  of  the  diseases  which  afflict 
men  are  derived  from  their  domestication  of  animals,  and 
that  thus  several  diseases  might  have  a  common  origin. 
"  For  example,"  he  asked, ':  Is  it  difficult  to  imagine  that 
measles,  scarlet  fever,  and  ulcerous  sore  throat  with  a 
spotted  skin,  have  all  sprung  from  the  same  source  ? " 

About  the  imagination,  there  might  be  little  difficulty  : 
the  difficulty  lay  in  the  production  of  proof  that  any 
disease  in  man  was  derived  from  disease  in  animals,  and 
that  disease  so  derived  was  variously  manifested.  Jen- 
ner wished  to  have  it  believed  that  a  variety  of  Cowpox 
was  generated  from  Horsegrease,  which  Cowpox  was  the 
source  of  Smallpox.  He  adduced  no  evidence,  however, 
to  connect  outbreaks  of  Smallpox  with  Cowpox ;  nor  did 
he  ever  suggest  that  dairymaids  caught  Smallpox  from 
Cows,  or  farriers  from  Horses.  His  identification  of 
Horsegrease  Cowpox  with  Smallpox  was  the  resemblance 
of  their  pustules,  and  on  the  ground  of  this  resemblance 
he  affirmed  the  equivalence  of  the  diseases.  Thus  in 
describing  his  first  inoculation  of  Cowpox,  that  of  Phipps 
from  the  hand  of  Sarah  Nelmes  on  the  14th  of  May, 
1796,  he  wrote— 


JENNER'S  INQUIRY,  1798.  121 

The  appearance  of  the  incisions  in  their  progress  to  a  state  of 
maturation  was  much  the  same  as  when  produced  in  a  similar 
manner  by  variolous  matter.  This  appearance  was  in  a  great 
measure  new  to  me,  and  I  ever  shall  recollect  the  pleasing  sensa- 
tions it  excited ;  as,  from  its  similarity  to  the  pustule  produced  by 
variolous  inoculation,  it  incontestably  pointed  out  the  close  con- 
nection between  the  two  diseases,  and  almost  anticipated  the 
result  of  my  future  experiments.  (P.  30.) 

The  similarity  of  the  Cowpox  and  Smallpox  pustules 
incontestably  pointed  out  the  close  connection  between 
the  two  diseases !  The  observation  and  the  conclusion 
are  worth  notice,  being  characteristic  of  Jenner's  loose 
and  illogical  mind.  He  was  familiar  with  Tartar  Emetic, 
and  he  might  have  observed  that  it  produced  pustules  on 
the  skin  exactly  like  those  of  Cowpox  and  Smallpox ; 
wherefore  would  it  have  been  fair  to  argue  that  the 
pustules  being  alike,  their  causes  were  incontestably 
identical  ?  Dr.  Hamernik  of  Prague  observes — 

Some  years  ago  the  theory  was  brought  forward,  under  the 
auspices  of  the  great  alchemistical  artist,  Hufeland,  that  Vaccina- 
tion from  Tartar  Emetic  pustules  was  a  perfect  substitute  for 
Vaccination  with  Cowpox,  and  had  the  same  beneficent  effect. 
With  this  I  fully  agree  ;  and  I  remark  further,  that  if  Tartar 
Emetic  pustulation  is  produced  in  Cows  and  Calves,  and  vaccine 
matter  is  then  taken  from  them,  such  Vaccination  is  also  perfectly 
harmless.  The  most  convincing  proof  of  the  beneficent  and 
identical  action  of  such  Vaccination  with  that  of  Cowpox,  is  fur- 
nished by  the  fact  that  it  presents  pustules  similar  in  size  and 
form,  therefore,  necessarily  of  identical  value.* 

Having  identified  Horsegrease  Cowpox  with  Smallpox, 
by  reason  of  similarity  of  pustules,  he  went  on  to  assert 
that  such  Horsegrease  Cowpox  was  equivalent  to  Small- 
pox for  inoculation,  and  was  attended  with  the  like 
prophylaxy,  saying — 

What  renders  the  Cowpox  virus  so  extremely  singular  is,  that 
the  person  affected  with  it  is  forever  after  secure  from  the  infection 
of  the  Smallpox ;  neither  exposure  to  the  variolous  effluvia,  nor  the 
insertion  of  the  matter  into  the  skin  producing  this  distemper.  (P.  7.) 

It  is  curious  also  to  observe,  that  the  virus,  which,  with  respect 
to  its  effects,  is  undetermined  and  uncertain  previously  to  its 

*  Remarks  on  Certain  Medical  Principles.     London,  1882. 


122  VACCINATION. 


passing  from  the  Horse  through  the  medium  of  the  Cow,  should 
then  not  only  become  more  active,  but  should  invariably  and  com- 
pletely possess  those  specific  properties  which  induce  in  the  human 
constitution  symptoms  similar  to  those  of  the  variolous  fever,  and 
effect  in  it  that  peculiar  change  which  for  ever  renders  it  in- 
susceptible of  the  variolous  contagion.  (P.  48.) 

And  so  on.  The  assurance  was  absolute,  and  the 
warrant  for  the  assurance  was  the  Cases  adduced,  and 
the  similarity  of  Horsegrease  Cowpox  pustules  and  Cow- 
pox  pustules !  But  if  the  pustules  were  similar,  the 
effects  were  not  similar.  Inoculation  with  Smallpox 
produced  Smallpox,  mild  or  otherwise,  with  pustules  few 
or  many;  but  inoculation  with  Horsegrease  Cowpox 
was  attended  with  no  eruption  beyond  the  points  of 
incision — 

It  is  an  excess  in  the  number  of  pustules  which  we  chiefly  dread 
in  the  Smallpox ;  but  in  the  Cowpox  no  pustules  appear,  nor  does 
it  seem  possible  for  the  contagious  matter  to  produce  the  disease 
from  effluvia  ;  so  that  a  single  individual  in  a  family  might  at  any 
time  receive  it  without  the  risk  of  infecting  the  rest,  or  of  spreading 
a  distemper  that  fills  a  country  with  terror.  (P.  58.) 

Very  good ;  but  where  are  we  ?  If  similarity  of 
pustule  proved  the  identity  of  Smallpox  and  Horsegrease 
Cowpox,  what  did  those  graver  dissimilarities  between 
the  diseases  prove  ?  That  an  objection  so  obvious  should 
never  have  occurred  to  Jenner  indicates  the  extent  of  his 
logical  capacity. 

Jenner's  expectation  from  the  issue  of  the  Inquiry 
had  nothing  of  the  prophetic  character  described  by  his 
enthusiastic  biographers.  It  is  only  necessary  to  peruse 
its  pages  and  note  the  dates  in  order  to  perceive  the  im- 
possibility of  the  vision  of  1780  described  by  Baron  when 
Jenner  exhibited  to  Gardner  his  future  glory,  and  how 
he  was  destined  to  stand  like  Aaron  between  the  living 
and  the  dead  until  the  plague  was  stayed.  Alas !  how 
many  similar  fables  may  we  entertain  because  the  means 
of  detection  are  not,  as  in  Jenner's  case,  available. 

When  Jenner  was  writing,  the  English  people  were 
committed  to  Smallpox  Inoculation,  or  more  accurately 
Smallpox  culture,  and  it  was  in  competition  with  Small- 


JENNER'S  INQUIRY,  1798.  123 

pox  that  he  advanced  Cowpox.  "  If  asked,"  he  said, 
"  whether  his  investigation  be  matter  of  mere  curiosity, 
or  whether  it  tend  to  any  beneficial  purpose,"  he  replied 
by  setting  forth  the  draw-backs  to  the  existing  practice, 
and  contrasting  them  with  the  advantages  of  his  own. 

Notwithstanding  [he  wrote]  the  happy  effects  of  Inoculation, 
with  all  the  improvements  the  practice  has  received  since  its  first 
introduction  into  this  country,  it  not  very  unfrequently  produces 
deformity  of  the  skin,  and  sometimes,  under  the  best  management, 
proves  fatal.  (P.  57.) 

On  the  contrary,  he  said — 

I  have  never  known  fatal  effects  arise  from  the  Cowpox,  even 
when  impressed  in  the  most  unfavourable  manner,  producing  ex- 
tensive inflammations  and  suppurations  on  the  hands ;  and  as  it 
clearly  appears  that  this  disease  leaves  the  constitution  in  a  state 
of  perfect  security  from  the  infection  of  the  Smallpox,  may  we  not 
infer  that  a  mode  of  Inoculation  may  be  introduced  preferable  to 
that  at  present  adopted,  especially  among  those  families,  which, 
from  previous  circumstances,  we  may  judge  to  be  predisposed  to 
have  the  disease  unfavourably  ? 

Inoculation  was  freely  charged  with  exciting  scrofula  ; 
thus  Jenner  observed — 

In  constitutions  predisposed  to  scrofula,  how  frequently  we  see 
the  inoculated  Smallpox  rouse  into  activity  that  distressful  malady; 
and  the  issue  does  not  seem  to  depend  on  the  manner  of  the  ino- 
culation, for  it  as  often  occurs  in  those  who  receive  it  mildly  as  in 
those  who  receive  it  severely.  (P.  60.) 

Happily  he  had  the  grace  to  refrain  from  the  explicit 
assertion  that  Cowpox  was  exempt  from  similar  hazard ; 
yet  with  characteristic  inconsistency,  was  disposed  to 
advance  a  claim  for  it  as  an  expulsive  irritant — 

As  we  have  seen  [though  he  never  showed]  that  the  constitution 
may  at  any  time  be  made  to  feel  the  febrile  attack  of  Cowpox, 
might  it  not,  in  many  chronic  diseases,  be  introduced  into  the 
system,  with  the  probability  of  affording  relief,  upon  well-known 
physiological  principles  ?  (P.  60.) 

A  reader  of  the  Inquiry  in  1798  could  never  have 
supposed  that  it  was  an  attempt  to  displace  the  existing 
practice  of  Inoculation.  Nor  is  there  any  sign  that  Jen- 


124  VACCINATION. 


ner  at  the  time  contemplated  such  an  issue.  He  referred 
to  Variolous  Inoculation  with  respect,  and  was  satisfied 
to  suggest  that  in  certain  cases  inoculation  with  Horse- 
grease  Cowpox  might  be  substituted  with  advantage. 
As  to  the  permanent  existence  of  Horsegrease  Cowpox 
he  was  doubtful.  Since,  he  said,  the  farmers  had  traced 
the  infection  to  the  Horse,  "  the  appearance  of  the  Cow- 
pox  may  either  be  entirely  extinguished  or  become  ex- 
tremely rare."  It  may  be  replied  that  this  behaviour  on 
the  part  of  Jenner  was  due  to  reserve  and  tact,  but  the 
reserve  and  tact  are  invisible.  The  Inquiry  was  simply 
what  it  appears — a  hasty  performance,  which,  in  other 
hands,  developed  to  more,  far  more,  than  its  author  con- 
templated. Subsequently  he,  and  his  friends  for  him, 
laid  claim  to  years  of  research  under  the  influence  of 
supernatural  foresight ;  but,  with  the  Inquiry  before  us, 
I  ask  where  is  the  evidence  ?  I  take  the  date,  14th  May, 
1796,  when  Jenner  inoculated  Phipps  from  the  hand  of 
Sarah  Nelmes,  as  the  time  when  the  project  of  inocula- 
tion with  Horsegrease  Cowpox  began  to  assume  form,  and 
I  maintain  that  the  character,  order  and  dates  of  the 
Cases  set  forth  in  the  Inquiry  plainly  show  that  they 
were  got  together  to  sustain  the  conclusion  then  arrived 
at.  When  Mr.  John  Simon  descants  on  Jenner's  thirty 
years  of  incessant  thought,  watching  and  experimenting 
which  resulted  in  the  production  of  that  Masterpiece  of 
Medical  Induction — The  Inquiry,  the  answer  is,  Peruse 
the  Inquiry,  and  then  say  where  the  fruit  of  thirty  years 
of  labour  is  to  be  found.  The  assertion  is  too  absurd  for 
discussion,  whatever  it  may  be  as  an  article  of  faith. 

The  single  point  of  originality  in  the  Inquiry  was  the 
definition  of  the  disease  for  which  prophylactic  efficacy 
was  asserted.  The  dairymaids  said  Cowpox :  the  farriers 
said  Horsegrease.  Jenner  said  neither  Cowpox  nor 
Horsegrease,  but  their  combination  in  Horsegrease  Cow- 
pox,  which  variety  of  Pox  alone  ensured  life-long  security 
from  Smallpox.  We  shall  see  as  we  proceed  how  this 
position  was  surrendered  and  resumed,  modified  and  con- 
fused beyond  recognition.  Let  it  suffice  at  present  to 


JENNER'S  INQUIRY,  1798.  125 

say  that  the  note  of  Jenner's  Inquiry  was  HORSEGREASE 
COWPOX  and  nothing  else.  Strike  out  HORSEGREASE 
COWPOX,  and  the  affair  is  reduced  to  nonentity. 

THE   VARIOLOUS   TEST. 

What  was  called  the  Variolous  Test  worked  wonder- 
fully for  Jenner ;  and  as  we  shall  have  to  refer  to  it 
repeatedly,  it  may  be  well  to  describe  and  dispose  of  it 
at  once. 

We  have  seen  how  the  Test  was  practised  in  the  Cases 
in  the  Inquiry.  Those  who  had  undergone  Cowpox 
were  inoculated  with  Smallpox,  and  as  the  Smallpox  did 
not  "  take,"  they  were  assumed  to  be  proof  against  that 
disease.  Hence  the  absolute  conclusion  proclaimed  Urbi 
et  Orbi,  that  none  inoculated  with  Cowpox  could  ever 
afterwards  contract  Smallpox. 

It  was  replied,  that  some  who  had  suffered  from  Cow- 
pox  had  contracted  Smallpox,  and  that  others  had 
received  the  disease  by  inoculation ;  to  which  Jenner's 
summary  answer  was,  "  There  must  have  been  some  mis- 
take about  the  Cowpox ;  for  no  one  can  have  genuine 
Cowpox  and  subsequently  incur  Smallpox,  either  by 
infection  or  inoculation." 

Cowpox  was  inoculated  and  propagated  from  arm  to 
arm ;  and,  in  proof  that  the  constitution  was  fortified 
against  Smallpox,  it  was  common  to  inoculate  with 
Smallpox,  which  usually  did  not  "  take ";  whereon  the 
operator  exclaimed,  "  Behold !  the  patient  is  insusceptible 
of  Smallpox  for  ever ! " 

Such  was  the  Variolous  Test.  It  was  to  multitudes 
absolutely  conclusive ;  and  to  question  its  validity  was 
to  exhibit  a  contentious  and  unphilosophic  disposition. 

What  shall  we  now  say  concerning  it  ? 

First,  that  failures  were  numerous  in  Variolous  Inocu- 
lation apart  from  Vaccination,  and  that  it  was  not  sup- 
posed that  when  a  patient  did  not  "  take,"  he  was  there- 
fore insusceptible  of  Smallpox;  nor  even  when  he  did 
"take,"  that  he  was  thereby  rendered  proof  against 
Smallpox.  So  many  of  the  successfully  inoculated  did 


126  VACCINATION. 


subequently  fall  victims  to  Smallpox,  that  Variolators 
at  the  end  of  last  century  were  compelled  to  argue  (like 
Vaccinators  at  the  end  of  this)  that  Variolation  was  a 
guard,  but  not  an  absolute  guard ;  and  that  when  it  did 
not  altogether  avert  Smallpox,  it  modified  and  mitigated 
an  attack.  The  excuse  for  failure  was  as  artful  as  the 
motive  was  urgent :  Variolation  was  too  good  a  trade  to 
be  imperilled  for  lack  of  a  little  ingenuity. 

Nevertheless,  if  we  make  full  allowance  on  the  score 
of  frequent  incapacity  to  receive  Variolation,  we  have 
yet  to  explain,  on  a  candid  view  of  the  whole  evidence, 
how  it  was  that  in  numerous  cases  Inoculation  with 
Smallpox  was  ineffective  after  Inoculation  with  Cowpox. 

"  What  can  you  urge  against  the  Variolous  Test  ? " 
was  a  frequent  and  imperious  demand. 

The  explanation  in  general  lay  in  the  fact,  that  Vario- 
lation was  attempted  before  the  complete  subsidence  of 
the  vaccine  fever.  The  inoculation  with  Cowpox  had 
set  up  a  serious  constitutional  disturbance,  and  during 
that  disturbance  the  Smallpox  virus  could  not  develop 
its  malign  energy.  Let  me  show  what  I  mean  from  the 
testimony  of  Jenner  himself. 

On  15th  March,  1800,  the  Duke  of  York  requested 
Jenner  to  proceed  to  Colchester  to  the  85th  Regiment. 
Jenner  was  unable  to  go,  and  sent  his  nephew,  George, 
instead,  who  had  to  report  a  complete  failure.  The  reason 
of  the  failure  was,  that  the  entire  Regiment,  with  women 
and  children,  had  the  itch  !  Jenner  was  then  driven  to 
the  conclusion  which,  says  Baron,  "  he  adopted  and  in- 
variably maintained  to  the  last  hour  of  his  life,  namely, 
that  any  cutaneous  disease,  however  slight  in  appearance, 
was  capable  of  interfering  with  the  regular  course  of  the 
Cowpox  and  of  preventing  it  from  exercising  its  full  pro- 
tecting influence."* 

Just  so :  and  mark  how  the  same  logic  applies  to  the 
Variolous  Test,  which  "  nobody  could  get  over."  If  any 
cutaneous  disorder,  however  slight,  could  nullify  Cow- 

*  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  i.  p.  380. 


JENNER  IN  1798.  127 


pox,  was  it  not  equally  probable  that  the  cutaneous  dis- 
order induced  by  inoculated  Cowpox  would  nullify  in- 
oculated Smallpox  until  the  effects  of  the  Cowpox  had 
time  to  subside  ?  When  the  itch  at  Colchester  was  cured, 
then  inoculation  with  Gowpox  was  found  to  be  practic- 
able. Thus  worthless  was  the  Variolous  Test  on  Jenner's 
own  principle;  yet  with  such  evidence  under  his  eyes 
and  among  his  fingers,  he  failed  to  discern  its  significance. 
Nor  apparently  did  he  inquire  whether  the  influence  of 
Cowpox  was  perpetuated  over  specified  periods  of  six 
months,  nine  months,  one  year,  two  years,  and  so  on. 
As  trader  and  adventurer,  it  suited  him  better  to  be  not 
over  inquisitive,  and  to  avow  boldly  that  his  specific  con- 
ferred life-long  immunity  from  Smallpox. 

Vaccinators  at  this  day  rarely  refer  to  the  once  famous 
Variolous  Test :  to  do  so  would  be  absurd.  The  fact  of 
Re-Vaccination,  of  Vaccination  after  Vaccination  at  short 
intervals,  proves,  that  whatever  the  influence  of  the 
operation,  it  is  transient  and  not  permanent;  and  the 
cases  of  Smallpox  after  Vaccination,  and  of  Smallpox  in 
its  most  malignant  forms  after  Re-Vaccination,  as  if  in- 
duced thereby,  leave  the  Variolous  Test,  which  so  widely 
impressed  and  imposed  upon  our  forefathers,  an  exploded 
piece  of  jugglery. 


CHAPTER    III. 
JENNER  IN  1798. 

JENNER,  with  his  wife  and  daughter,  left  Berkeley  for 
London  on  24th  April,  1798,  in  order  to  see  the  Inquiry 
through  the  press.  He  remained  in  London  until  14th 
July,  and  failed,  if  he  tried,  to  induce  any  inoculator  to 
substitute  cowpox  for  smallpox.  In  the  Jenner  legend, 
it  is  usual  to  find  some  touching  remarks  on  this  trip  to 
town:  genius  unrecognised:  truth  turned  from  every 
door :  the  great  soul  abiding  in  patience  and  courage  in- 


128  VACCINATION. 


vincible.  Dates,  however,  are  again  merciless.  The 
Inquiry  was  not  in  the  booksellers'  hands  until  the  end 
of  June,  and,  within  a  fortnight  after  publication,  Jenner 
was  on  his  way  to  Berkeley.  There  was  no  occasion  for 
the  virtues  specified. 

Among  Jenner's  acquaintance  was  Henry  Cline, 
teacher  of  surgery  in  St.  Thomas's  Hospital ;  and  with 
Cline  he  left  some  virus  in  a  quill  that  he  had  taken 
from  the  arm  of  Hannah  Excell,  at  Berkeley  on  5th  April. 
Cline  had  a  patient,  a  child  named  Richard  Weller,  with 
an  affection  of  the  hip-joint,  and  intending  to  create  an 
issue  by  way  of  counter-irritation,  he  inoculated  the  hip 
with  Excell's  virus,  and  thus  described  the  experiment  in 
a  letter  to  Jenner — 

LINCOLN'S  INN  FIELDS,  2nd  August,  1798. 

The  Cowpox  experiment  has  succeeded  admirably.  The  child 
sickened  on  the  seventh  day ;  and  the  fever,  which  was  moderate, 
subsided  on  the  eleventh  day.  The  inflammation  extended  to 
about  four  inches  diameter,  and  then  gradually  subsided  without 
having  been  attended  with  pain  or  other  inconvenience.  The  ulcer 
was  not  large  enough  to  contain  a  pea ;  therefore,  I  have  not  con- 
verted it  into  an  issue  as  I  intended.  I  have  since  inoculated  him 
with  smallpox  in  three  places,  which  were  slightly  inflamed  on  the 
third  day,  and  then  subsided. 

Dr.  Lister,  who  was  formerly  physician  to  the  Smallpox  Hospital, 
attended  the  child  with  me,  and  he  is  convinced  that  it  is  not  pos- 
sible to  give  him  the  smallpox. 

I  think  the  substituting  of  cowpox  poison  for  the  smallpox  pro- 
mises to  be  one  of  the  greatest  improvements  that  has  ever  been 
made  in  medicine ;  for  it  is  not  only  so  safe  in  itself,  but  also  does 
not  endanger  others  by  contagion,  in  which  way  the  smallpox  has 
done  infinite  mischief.  The  more  I  think  on  the  subject,  the  more 
I  am  impressed  with  its  importance. 

Cline  then  attempted  to  vaccinate  with  virus  taken 
from  Weiler's  hip,  but  failed.  He  wrote  to  Jenner — 

LINCOLN'S  INN  FIELDS,  18th  August,  1798. 

Seven  days  since  I  inoculated  three  children  with  cowpox  matter, 
and  I  have  the  mortification  of  finding  that  the  infection  has  not 
taken,  and  I  fear  I  shall  be  entirely  disappointed  unless  you  can 
contrive  to  send  me  some  fresh  matter.  I  think  it  might  come  in 
a  quill  in  a  letter,  or  enclosed  in  a  bit  of  tin-foil. 


JENNER  IN  1798.  129 


Jenner  was  unable  to  comply  with  CJine's  request :  he 
had  no  cowpox  to  transmit :  and  readers  of  the  Inquiry 
who  addressed  to  him  similar  requests  had  to  submit  to 
similar  disappointments,  out  of  which  some  suspicion  was 
naturally  developed.  The  recommendation  of  a  remedy 
whereof  there  was  no  available  supply  was  not  a  pass- 
port to  confidence. 

Baron  relates,  that  "  Mr.  Cline  perceiving  at  once  from 
the  success  of  his  first  trial,  what  incalculable  blessings 
were  connected  with  the  diffusion  of  the  new  practice, 
immediately  advised  Jenner  to  quit  the  country,  and  to 
take  a  house  in  Grosvenor  Square,  and  promised  him 
£10,000  per  annum  as  the  result  of  his  practice;  in 
which  opinion  Mr.  Cline  was  supported  by  Sir  W. 
Farquhar ;  but  that  all  these  splendid  prospects  of  wealth 
and  distinction  could  not  move  Jenner."* 

The  story  is  either  an  invention,  or  it  does  little  credit 
to  Cline's  judgment.  Jenner  had  neither  the  means  for 
a  house  in  Grosvenor  Square,  nor  was  there  any  likeli- 
hood of  his  earning  £10,000  a  year  by  cowpox.  Never- 
theless it  would  appear  that  at  this  juncture  some  one 
was  advising  him  to  try  London  (one's  vanity  is  never 
without  a  prompter),  and  that  Jenner  replied — 

CHELTENHAM,  29th  September. 

My  perplexity  really  amounts  to  agitation.  On  the  one  hand,  un- 
willing to  come  to  town  myself  for  the  sake  of  practice,  and, 
on  the  other,  fearful  that  the  practice  I  have  recommended  may 
fall  into  the  hands  of  those  who  are  incapable  of  conducting 
it,  I, am  thrown  into  a  state  that  was  not  at  first  perceptible  as 
likely  to  happen  to  me  ;  for,  believe  me,  I  am  not  callous  to  all  the 
feelings  of  those  wounds  which,  from  misrepresentation,  might  fall 
on  my  reputation;  on  the  contrary,  no  nerves  could  feel  more 
acutely  ;  and  they  now  are  actually  in  a  tremor  from  anticipation. 

How  very  few  are  capable  of  conducting  physiological  experi- 
ments !  I  am  fearful  that  before  we  thoroughly  understand  what 
is  cowpox  matter,  and  what  is  not,  some  confusion  may  arise,  for 
which  I  shall,  unjustly,  be  made  answerable.f 

If  his  correspondent  had  been  a  man  of  sense,  he  might 
have  replied — 

*  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  i.  p.  154.         Ibid.  p.  155. 

9 


130  VACCINATION. 


Why  so  much  ado  about  nothing !  You  recommend  that  horse- 
grease  cowpox  be  substituted  for  smallpox  in  cases  of  inoculation. 
It  is  a  simple  prescription,  easily  determined  altogether  apart  from 
you,  and  there  is  no  reason  why  you  should  work  yourself  into 
such  a  nutter. 

But  Jenner  was  not  the  unimpassioned  man  of  science, 
who  can  leave  truth  to  take  care  of  itself,  and  submit 
when  truth  contradicts  his  prepossessions.  Dr.  Ingen- 
housz,  an  Anglicised  Dutchman  (born  at  Breda,  1730), 
with  reputation  as  electrician  and  chemist,  read  the 
Inquiry  with  considerable  amazement.  He  was  himself 
an  inoculator  of  mark,  having  been  selected  by  the 
Empress  Maria  Teresa  to  operate  upon  the  imperial 
family  of  Austria ;  and  by  her  had  been  rewarded  (after 
the  pattern  of  Catharine  of  Russia  and  Dimsdale)  with  a 
pension  of  £600  a  year,  and  the  titles  of  Aulic  Councillor 
and  Imperial  Physician.  Naturally,  therefore,  Ingen- 
housz  had  a  lively  interest  in  Jenner's  project,  and  being 
on  a  visit  to  the  Marquis  of  Lansdowne  at  his  seat  in 
Wiltshire,  addressed  him  as  follows — 

BOWOOD  PARK,  12th  October,  1798. 

As  soon  as  I  arrived  at  Bo  wood,  I  thought  it  my  duty  to  inquire 
concerning  the  extraordinary  doctrines  contained  in  your  publica- 
tion, as  I  knew  the  cowpox  was  well  known  in  this  county. 

The  first  gentleman  to  whom  I  addressed  myself  was  Mr.  Alsop, 
an  eminent  practitioner  at  Calne,  who  made  me  acquainted  with 
Mr.  Henry  Stiles,  a  respectable  farmer  at  Whitley,  who,  thirty 
years  ago,  bought  a  cow  at  a  fair,  which  he  found  to  be  infected 
with  what  he  called  the  cowpox.  This  cow  soon  infected  the  whole 
dairy ;  and  he  himself,  by  milking  the  infected  cow,  caught  the 
disease  which  you  describe,  and  that  in  a  very  severe  way,  accom- 
panied with  pain,  stiffness,  and  swelling  of  the  axillary  glands. 
Having  recovered  from  the  disease,  and  all  the  sores  dried,  he  was 
inoculated  with  smallpox  by  Mr.  Alsop.  The  disease  took  place, 
a  great  many  pox  came  out,  and  he  communicated  the  infection  to 
his  father  who  died  of  it. 

This  being  an  incontrovertible  fact,  cannot  fail  to  make  some 
impression  on  your  mind,  and  excite  you  to  inquire  further  on  the 
subject  before  you  venture  finally  to  decide  in  favour  of  a  doctrine, 
which  may  do  great  mischief  should  it  prove  erroneous. 

The  impression  made  on  Jenner's  mind  was  simply 
one  of  annoyance.  He  fell  back  on  the  assertion  that  all 


JENNER  IN  1798.  131 


was  not  cowpox  that  was  supposed  to  be  cowpox,  and 
that  Farmer  Stiles  could  not  have  had  the  genuine 
distemper,  or  he  would  not  have  received  smallpox  by 
inoculation.  It  did  not  even  occur  to  him  that  it  was 
necessary  to  investigate  and  account  for  the  evidence 
adduced  \)y  Ingenhousz,  which  was  every  whit  as  valid 
as  much  of  his  own.  He  was  content  to  protest — 

In  the  course  of  my  inquiry,  not  a  single  instance  occurred  of 
any  one  having  the  disease,  either  casually  or  from  inoculation,  who 
on  subsequent  exposure  to  variolous  contagion  received  the  infec- 
tion of  smallpox Should  it  appear  in  the  present  instance 

that  I  have  been  led  into  error,  fond  as  I  may  appear  of  the  off- 
spring of  my  labours,  I  had  rather  strangle  it  at  once  than  suffer  it 
to  exist,  and  do  a  public  injury.  At  present,  I  have  not  the  most 
distant  doubt  that  any  person,  who  has  once  felt  the  influence  of 
perfect  cowpox  matter,  would  ever  be  susceptible  of  that  of  the 
smallpox. 

Could  universal  conclusion  be  deduced  from  more 
questionable  premisses  ?  and  this,  too,  by  one  who  had 
just  exclaimed,  "  How  very  few  are  capable  of  conducting 
physiological  experiments  ! "  Always,  as  we  shall  see, 
ungenerous  toward  those  who  questioned  his  assertions, 
Jenner  wrote  to  his  friend,  Gardner — 

This  man,  Ingenhousz,  knows  no  more  of  the  real  nature  of  the 
cowpox  than  Master  Selwyn  does  of  Greek :  yet  he  is  among  philo- 
sophers what  Johnson  was  among  the  literati,  and,  by  the  way,  not 
unlike  him  in  figure — 

When,  in  fact,  what  provoked  him  was  that  Ingen- 
housz knew  too  much  about  cowpox,  and  had  laid  his 
finger  on  the  point  of  error  at  the  outset.  Inquiry  on 
the  part  of  Ingenhousz  brought  to  light  several  other 
instances  of  smallpox  after  cowpox ;  and  Dr.  Pulteney  of 
Blandford  reported  that  Dorsetshire  inoculators  were 
familiar  with  the  one  sort  of  pox  after  the  other  sort. 
Jenner's  constant  answer  to  such  objections  was,  "  Yes  ; 
but  it  could  not  have  been  true  cowpox  to  start  with  " — 
a  style  of  argument  maintained  with  parrot-like  per- 
sistency when  smallpox  followed  vaccination.  "  Ah  ! "  it 
was  said,  "  there  must  have  been  some  mistake  about  the 


132  VACCINATION. 


vaccination;   for  no  one  can  be  thoroughly  vaccinated 
and  have  smallpox." 

Looking  back  on  the  final  years  of  last  century,  it  is 
much  to  be  regretted  that  more  pains  were  not  taken  to 
hold  Jenner  fast  to  his  position  that  smallpox  never  fol- 
lowed cowpox,  and  to  demonstrate  beyond  contention 
that  it  was  not  true.  It  certainly  was  not  true ;  the 
evidence  to  that  fact  was  indisputable ;  but  few  were 
disposed  to  follow  Ingenhousz  into  the  West  of  England 
and  search  for  the  requisite  proof ;  and  Ingenhousz  was 
cut  out  of  the  controversy  by  his  death  at  Bowood  on  7th 
September,  1799.  Presently  Jenner  managed  to  have 
the  contention  shifted  from  the  experience  of  the  dairies 
to  vaccination  from  arm  to  arm  and  the  illusory  variolous 
test,  and  the  advantage  of  a  decision  at  the  springs  of 
fallacy  was  lost.  In  the  general  confusion  which  ensued 
Jenner  came  to  be  taken  for  a  discoverer,  and  he  posed 
diligently  in  the  character,  when  he  was  nothing  more 
than  the  advertiser  of  the  vulgar  opinion  of  his  neighbour- 
hood, with  the  modification  that  not  Cowpox  but  Horse- 
grease  Cowpox  was  the  true  and  infallible  specific.  The 
fact  is  so  clear,  that  he  was  a  mere  advertiser,  that  it 
would  not  be  worth  repetition,  were  it  not  so  systemati- 
cally treated  as  unseen.  How  distinctly  it  was  at  first 
recognised  appears  in  a  letter  of  thanks  for  a  copy  of  the 
Inquiry  addressed  to  Jenner  by  Francis  Knight,  a  Lon- 
don surgeon,  wherein  he  observed — 

CLIFFORD  STREET,  10th  September,  1798. 

I  have  read  your  publication  with  much  satisfaction  ;  and,  from 
a  long  residence  in  the  dairy  part  of  Wiltshire,  as  well  as  in  Glou- 
cestershire, I  know  the  facts  to  be  well  supported ;  at  least,  it  was 
a  general  opinion  among  the  dairymen,  that  those  who  had  received 
the  cowpox  were  not  susceptible  of  the  variolous  disease.  The 
cowpox  pustule  is  very  familiar  to  my  eye,  and  I  am  quite  charmed 
with  the  delineation  of  it  in  your  plates.  You  have  opened  to  the 
world  a  very  curious  field  of  investigation,  and  it  is  too  interesting 
a  subject  to  die  with  the  day.* 

In  these  remarks  of  Knight,  we  have  Jenner's  position 

*  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  i.  p.  159. 


JENNER  IN  1798.  133 


accurately  defined.  He  made  himself  responsible  for 
"  the  general  opinion  among  the  dairymen ";  and  had 
some  one  at  that  time  shown  in  perspicuous  and  emphatic 
fashion  that  the  dairymen  were  wrong,  Jenner  would 
have  been  summarily  disposed  of.  Vain,  however,  are 
such  regrets ;  and  we  may  find  comfort  in  the  reflection 
that  there  is  an  order  in  the  universe  which  converts 
misfortune  into  means  for  greater  and  rarer  good. 

Another  letter  to  Jenner  from  Dr.  Hicks  contains  these 
remarks — 

BRISTOL,  3rd  October,  1798. 

I  wish  you  had  been  able  to  have  communicated  the  cowpox  to 
the  cow  by  means  of  inoculation  from  a  greasy  horse's  heel,  for 
your  work  would  then  have  been  more  complete  and  satisfactory. 

I  do  not  see  that  you  need  hesitate  to  accept  the  invitation  given 
you  to  inoculate  with  the  cowpox,  convinced  as  you  are  that  it 
will  secure  the  persons  so  inoculated  from  ever  being  infected  with 
the  smallpox. 

Everlasting  security  from  smallpox !  Such  was  the 
unqualified  promise,  and  with  how  little  warrant !  In 
presence  of  a  Socratic  inquirer  with  his  persistent,  how 
do  you  know  ?  Jenner  must  have  stood  confounded. 

A  letter  to  Jenner  from  Dr.  Percival,  also  contains 
some  remarks  worth  notice.  He  wrote — 

MANCHESTER,  20th  November,  1798. 

The  facts  you  have  adduced  incontestably  prove  the  existence  of 
the  cowpox,  and  its  ready  communication  to  the  human  species. 
But  a  larger  induction  is  yet  necessary  to  evince  that  the  virus  of 
the  Variolas  Vaccina  renders  the  person  who  has  been  affected  with 
it  secure  during  the  whole  of  life  from  the  infection  of  the  small- 
pox. 

Mr.  Simmons,  an  ingenious  surgeon  of  this  town,  has  inoculated 
a  human  subject  with  the  ichor  issuing  from  what  is  termed  the 
grease  in  horses  ;  but  the  fluid  introduced,  though  eight  punctures 
were  made,  neither  occasioned  inflammation  nor  eruption ;  yet  the 
same  child  was  soon  afterwards  inoculated  with  success  for  the 
smallpox.  Mr.  Simmons  has  now  engaged  a  herd  of  cows,  and  is 
busily  employed  in  making  such  experiments  as  your  publication 
has  suggested. 

It  is  very  remarkable,  that  the  cowpox  has  been  hitherto  unno- 
ticed in  Cheshire,  which  is  not  less  a  dairy  county  than  Gloucester- 
shire, and  where  the  office  of  milking  is  performed  also  by  men  and 
maid  servants  indiscriminately. 


134  VACCINATION. 


The  frequent  statement  that  Jenner's  Inquiry  was  at 
first  received  with  indifference  is  entirely  untrue  :  on  the 
contrary,  it  was  read  with  interest  from  the  outset,  and 
the  only  check  he  met  was  due  to  his  inability  to  supply 
the  demands  of  correspondents  for  samples  of  the  pre- 
cious virus.  Cowpox  was  absent  for  awhile  from  the 
dairies,  and  great  was  his  relief  and  delight  when  toward 
the  end  of  1798  some  matter  was  obtained  from  a  farm 
at  Stonehouse  wherewith  on  the  27th  November  he  vac- 
cinated the  children  of  his  friend,  Henry  Hicks  of  East- 
ington  ;  "  the  first  gentleman,"  says  Baron, "  who  had  the 
merit  of  submitting  his  own  children  to  the  new  practice." 

Ere  1798  had  passed  away,  Jenner  had  secured  an 
energetic  ally  in  Dr.  George  Pearson,  F.R.S.,  Physician  to 
St.  George's  Hospital,  London,*  Pearson  entered  into 
the  cowpox  question  with  his  whole  heart,  and  consti- 
tuted himself  a  sort  of  partner  in  Jenner's  project.  He 
wrote  to  him — 

LEICESTER  SQUARE,  8tli  November,  1798. 

Your  name  will  live  in  the  memory  of  mankind,  as  long  as  men 
possess  gratitude  for  services  and  respect  for  benefactors ;  and  if  I 
can  but  get  matter,  I  am  much  mistaken  if  I  do  make  you  live  for 
ever. 

And  in  a  more  decided  strain  on  loth  November — 

I  wish  you  could  secure  me  matter  for  inoculation,  because,  de- 
pend upon  it,  a  thousand  inacurate  but  imposing  cases  will  be  pub- 
lished against  the  specific  nature  of  the  disease  by  persons  who 
want  to  send  their  names  abroad  about  anything,  and  who  will 
think  you  and  me  fair  game. 

In  the  same  letter  he  told  Jenner  what  some  were  say- 
ing about  the  suggested  practice — 

You  cannot  imagine  how  fastidious  the  people  are  with  regard  to 
this  business  of  the  cowpox.  One  says  that  it  is  very  filthy  and 
nasty  to  derive  it  from  the  sore  heels  of  horses.  Another,  that  we 
shall  introduce  the  diseases  of  animals  among  us,  and  that  we  have 
already  too  many  of  our  own.  A  third  sapient  set  say,  it  is  a 


*  Born  at  Rotherham,  1751.  Graduated  M.D.,  Edinburgh,  and  prac- 
tised at  Doncaster  until  1784,  when  he  removed  to  London.  Died  at  his 
house  in  Hanover  Square  from  a  fall  down  stairs,  9th  November,  1828. 


JENNER  IN  1798.  135 


strange  odd  kind  of  business,  and  they  know  not  what  to  think  of 
it.  All  this  I  hear  very  quietly,  and  recollect  that  a  still  more  un- 
favourable reception  was  given  to  inoculation  for  the  smallpox. 

Such  observations  were  natural  and  to  be  expected. 
Jenner  wrote  to  Gardner  that  "  brick-bats  and  hostile 
weapons  of  every  sort  were  flying  thick  around  him," 
but  they  were  chiefly  imaginary.  His  revelation  was 
communicated  to  a  ready  world.  It  was  no  revolution- 
ary project,  but  a  seductive  modification  of  existing 
practice.  Inoculation  with  smallpox  was  the  order  of 
the  day  among  all  respectable  people.  The  operation 
was  troublesome  and  uncertain,  perilous  to  patients  and 
to  those  in  contact  with  them ;  and,  when  all  was  done, 
it  afforded  no  unquestionable  security  against  the  disease 
it  was  designed  to  avert.  To  a  community  thus  harassed 
and  anxious,  came  Jenner  with  his  prescription  and  his 
promise — Substitute  cowpox  for  smallpox  and  you  will 
escape  from  this  distress,  danger,  doubt.  You  will  have 
a  harmless  fever  without  pustules  and  without  risk  of 
infection,  and  the  security  from  smallpox  will  be  absolute 
and  perpetual.  What  wonder  that  in  such  circumstances 
Jenner's  message  was  heard  gladly  and  accepted  with 
grateful  enthusiasm.  That  he  should  have  encountered 
some  resistance  was  inevitable,  for  what  change  is  ever 
effected  without  opposition  and  ominous  prediction  ? 
But  the  change  Jenner  proposed  was  the  slightest  of 
changes  with  the  largest  prospects  of  advantage.  Unless 
these  conditions  are  borne  in  mind,  we  shall  never  rightly 
understand  the  reception  accorded  by  our  forefathers  to 
inoculation  with  cowpox. 


136  VACCINATION. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

PEARSON'S  INQUIRY. 

DR.  PEARSON'S  Inquiry  concerning  the  History  of  the 
Cowpox  *  is  a  remarkable  proof  of  the  alacrity  and 
energy  with  which  Jenner's  project  was  entertained. 
As  observed,  Jenner's  Inquiry  was  published  at  the  end 
of  June,  1798,  and  ere  six  months  were  over,  in  November, 
1798,  appeared  Pearson's  Inquiry,  a  masterly  review  of 
Jenner's ;  and  not  only  a  review,  but  a  record  of  investi- 
gation, personal  and  by  correspondence  with  country 
physicians  and  farmers  ;  the  entire  work  displaying  a 
capacity  for  business  to  which  Jenner  was  wholly  un- 
equal. 

Cowpox  did  not  come  before  Pearson  as  a  novelty,  nor 
Jenner  in  connection  therewith.  He  relates — 

"When  I  was  in  company  with  the  late  Mr.  John  Hunter,  about 
nine  years  ago,  I  heard  him  communicate  the  information  he  had 
received  from  Dr.  Jenner,  that  in  Gloucestershire  an  infectious  dis- 
order frequently  prevailed  among  the  milch  cows,  named  the  Cow- 
pox,  in  which  there  was  an  eruption  on  their  teats  ;  that  those  who 
milked  such  cows  were  liable  to  be  affected  with  pustulous  erup- 
tions on  their  hands,  which  were  also  called  the  cowpox ;  that  such 
persons  as  had  undergone  this  DISEASE  COULD  NOT  BE  INFECTED 
BY  THE  VARIOLOUS  POISON  ;  and  that  as  no  patient  had  been  known 
to  die  of  the  Cowpox,  the  practice  of  the  inoculation  of  the  poison 
of  this  disease,  to  supersede  the  Smallpox,  might  be  found,  on  ex- 
perience, to  be  a  great  improvement  in  physic. 

I  noted  these  observations,  and  constantly  related  them,  when 
on  the  subject  of  Smallpox,  in  every  course  of  lectures  which  I  have 
given  since  that  time.  (P.  5.) 

The  communication  of  Jenner  to  Hunter  was  nothing 
of  a  discovery.  There  was  no  secret  in  the  existence  of 
Cowpox,  nor  in  the  belief  that  inoculation  therewith 
fortified  the  sufferer  against  Smallpox.  Dr.  Pulteney,  of 
Blandford,  informed  Pearson  that — 

*  An  Inquiry  concerning  the  History  of  the  Cowpox,  principally  with  a 
view  to  supersede  and  extinguish  the  Smallpox.  By  George  Pearson, 
M.D.,  F.R.S.,  Physician  to  St.  George's  Hospital,  etc.  London,  1798, 
8vo.,  pp.  116. 


PEARSON'S  INQUIRY.  137 

Cowpox  is  well  known  in  Hampshire,  Dorsetshire,  Somerset- 
shire, and  Devonshire.  It  is  not  unknown  in  Leicestershire,  and 
other  midland  counties  ;  but  dairymen  keep  it  a  secret  as  much  as 
possible,  as  it  is  disreputable  to  the  cleanliness  of  their  produce. 
(P.  8.) 

In  the  northern  counties  and  in  Wales,  Cowpox  was 
either  rarely  seen  or  unknown.  In  Cheshire,  as  much 
of  a  dairy  county  as  Gloucestershire,  where  also  men 
acted  as  milkers,  the  disease  was  never  met  with. 
Where,  however,  Cowpox  was  recognised,  the  faith  in  its 
efficacy  against  Smallpox  appeared  to  be  general,  and 
inoculators  regarded  it  as  a  bar  to  their  success.  Thus 
Mr.  Giffard,  surgeon,  Gillingham,  wrote  to  Pearson,  9th 
August,  1798— 

Cowpox  is  more  known  in  Dorsetshire  than  in  most  counties. 
Last  winter  I  inoculated  three  parishes,  and  some  of  the  subjects 
told  me  they  had  had  the  Cowpox,  and  that  they  should  not  take 
the  Smallpox ;  but  I  desired  to  inoculate  them,  and  did  so  two 
or  three  times,  but  without  effect.  Persons  never  take  the  Small- 
pox after  they  have  had  the  Cowpox.  (P.  14.) 

At  a  milk-farm  on  the  Hampstead  Road,  Pearson  found 
a  man  who  had  often  seen  Cowpox  in  Wiltshire  and 
Gloucestershire.  He  said  that — 

He  had  known  many  who  had  had  Cowpox,  and  they  never  suf- 
fered from  the  Smallpox,  although  it  prevailed  in  their  own  families. 
To  use  his  own  words,  they  who  have  had  the  Cowpox  "  are  hard 
to  take  the  Smallpox."  (P.  29.) 

Mr.  Rolph,  surgeon,  Peckharn,  who  had  practised  in 
Gloucestershire,  informed  Pearson  that — 

Cowpox  was  very  frequently  epizootic  in  the  dairy-farms  in  the 

spring A  great  number  of  instances  of  the  Cowpox  in 

milkers  had  fallen  under  his  observation,  but  not  a  single  mortal, 
or  even  dangerous,  case  occurred.  There  was  not  a  medical  man 
in  Gloucestershire,  or  scarce  a  dairy-farmer,  who  did  not  know 
from  his  own  experience,  or  that  of  others,  that  those  who  have 
suffered  the  Cowpox  are  exempt  from  the  agency  of  the  variolous 
poison.  (P.  95.) 

Dr.  Croft  likewise  told  Pearson — 

That  in  Staffordshire  to  his  knowledge,  the  fact  had  been  long 
known  of  the  Cowpox,  which  prevails  in  that  county,  affording  an 
exemption  of  the  human  subjects  from  the  Smallpox.  (P.  35.) 


138  VACCINATION. 


Nor  did  what  was  so  widely  believed  escape  mention 
in  medical  literature.  Thus  Dr.  Beddoes,  in  Queries 
concerning  Inoculation,  had  written  in  1795 — 

I  have  learnt  from  my  own  observation,  and  the  testimony  of 
some  old  practitioners,  that  susceptibility  to  the  Smallpox  is  de- 
stroyed by  the  Cowpox,  which  is  a  malady  more  unpleasant  than 
dangerous. 

And  Dr.  Adams,  in  his  treatise  on  Morbid  Poisons, 

1795,  observed — 

Cowpox  is  a  disease  well  known  to  the  dairy-farmers  in  Glouces- 
tershire. What  is  extraordinary,  as  far  as  facts  have  hitherto  been 
ascertained,  a  person  infected  with  Cowpox  is  rendered  insensible 
to  the  variolous  poison. 

And   Dr.  Woodville  in  his  History  of  Inoculation, 

1796,  argued— 

It  has  been  conjectured  that  the  Smallpox  might  have  been  de- 
rived from  some  disease  of  brute  animals ;  and,  if  it  be  true  that 
the  mange  affecting  dogs,  can  communicate  a  species  of  itch  to 
man ;  or  that  a  person,  having  received  a  certain  disorder  from 
handling  the  teats  of  cows,  is  thereby  rendered  insensible  to  vario- 
lous infection  ever  afterwards — then,  indeed,  the  conjecture  is  not 
improbable. 

The  belief,  moreover,  that  Cowpox  was  good  against 
Smallpox,  had  tempted  several  to  court  the  disease.  The 
Rev.  Herman  Drewe  wrote  to  Pearson  of  himself  and 
Mr.  Bragge,  surgeon,  Axminster,  5th  July,  1798 — 

Mr.  Bragge  and  I  endeavoured  to  try  the  experiment  of  inocu- 
lating with  the  matter  of  the  Cowpox,  but  from  the  scarceness  of 
the  disease,  and  unwillingness  of  patients,  we  were  disappointed. 
(P.  39.) 

Mr.  Dolling  of  Blandford  related  that — 

Mr.  Justings,  of  Axminster,  inoculated  his  wife  and  children  with 
matter  taken  from  the  teats  of  a  cow  that  had  the  Cowpox.  In 
about  a  week  afterwards  their  arms  were  very  much  inflamed,  and 
the  patients  were  so  ill  that  the  medical  assistance  of  Mr.  Meach, 
of  Cerne,  was  called  for.  The  patients  did  well.  They  were  after- 
wards inoculated  for  the  Smallpox  by  Mr.  Trobridge  without  effect. 
(P.  42.) 

Dr.  Pulteney  of  Blandford  informed  Pearson  that — 
A  respectable  practitioner  inoculated  seven  children  for  the  Small- 
pox, five  of  whom  had  been  purposely  infected  with  the  Cowpox  by 


PEARSON'S  INQUIRY.  139 

being  made  to  handle  the  teats  and  udders  of  cows  under  the  dis- 
ease, and  in  consequence  contracted  the  distemper.  These  five, 
after  inoculation  for  the  Smallpox,  did  not  sicken,  whilst  the  other 
two  did.  (P.  39.) 

These  cases  were  examples  of  many ;  and  if  it  be 
asked,  why  were  not  such  inoculations  repeated,  we  may 
take  an  answer  from  Mr.  Fewster,  surgeon,  of  Thornbury, 
who,  in  a  practice  of  thirty  years  in  Gloucestershire, 
inoculated  thousands  with  Smallpox,  and  had  known 
"  numberless  instances  of  Cowpox."  He  wrote,  llth 
October,  1798— 

In  general,  I  think,  Cowpox  is  a  much  more  severe  disease  than 
the  inoculated  Smallpox ;  nor  do  I  see  any  great  advantage  from 
its  inoculation.  Smallpox  inoculation  seems  to  be  so  well  under- 
stood that  there  is  very  little  need  of  a  substitute.  It  is  curious, 
however,  and  may  lead  to  other  improvements.  (P.  104.) 

To  show  still  further  how  Jenner's  communication  was 
"  in  the  air  "  ready  for  descent.  Mr.  Downe,  surgeon  of 
Bridport,  wrote  to  Pearson,  1st  August,  1798 — 

A  few  years  ago  when  I  inoculated  a  great  number  for  the  Small- 
pox, I  remarked  that  I  could  not  by  any  means  infect  one  or  two 
of  them ;  and,  on  inquiry,  I  was  informed  that  they  had  previously 
been  infected  with  the  Cowpox.  I  know  that  a  medical  man  in 
this  part  of  the  country  was  injured  in.  his  practice  by  a  prejudice 
raised  unjustly  that  lie  intended  to  substitute  the  Cowpox  for  the 
Smallpox  in  inoculation,  So  great  an  enemy  to  improvement  are 
the  prejudices  of  the  public  in  the  country,  that  I  think  experiments 
of  importance  can  only  be  made  in  hospitals.  (P.  10.) 

Thus  popular  scandal  anticipated  what  was  called 
Jenner's  discovery ! 

Nor  was  Pearson  content  simply  to  inquire  of  others  : 
he  experimented  himself,  and  put  Cowpox  to  the  test  a 
week  or  so  before  the  appearance  of  Jenner's  Inquiry. 
He  wrote — 

Happening,  on  the  14th  of  June,  to  be  with  Mr.  Lucas,  apothe- 
cary, on  professional  business  at  Mr.  Willan's  farm,  adjoining  the 
New  Koad,  Marylebone,  where  from  800  to  1000  milch  cows  are 
kept,  I  availed  myself  of  the  opportunity  to  make  inquiry  concern- 
ing the  Cowpox.  I  was  told  it  was  a  pretty  frequent  disease  among 
the  cows  of  that  farm,  especially  in  winter,  and  that  it  was  sup- 
posed to  arise  from  suJLden  change  from  poor  to  rich  food.  It  was 
also  well  known  to  the  servants,  some  of  whom  had  been  affected 


140  VACCINATION. 


with  the  malady  from  milking  the  diseased  cows.  On  investigation, 
I  found  that  three  of  the  men-servants,  namely,  Thomas  Edin- 
burgh, Thomas  Grimshaw,  and  John  Clarke  had  been  affected  with 
the  Cowpox,  but  not  with  the  Smallpox.  I  induced  them  to  be 
inoculated  for  the  Smallpox,  and,  with  the  view  of  ascertaining  the 
efficacy  of  the  variolous  infection  employed,  William  Kent  and 
Thomas  East,  neither  of  whom  had  either  the  Cowpox  or  the 
Smallpox,  were  also  inoculated.  (P.  14.) 

The  result  conformed  to  expectation :  Edinburgh, 
Grimshaw,  and  Clarke  did  not  take  Smallpox,  even 
though  inoculation  was  repeated,  whilst  Kent  and  East 
did.  Pearson  set  forth  his  experiments  much  more 
philosophically  than  Jenner,  but  his  bias  was  pronounced, 
and  it  blinded  him  to  some  obvious  considerations;  and  it 
is  marvellous  how  easily  we  may  accumulate  details  for 
which  we  have  a  fancy.  Summing  up  the  testimonies 
he  had  collected,  he  held  that — 

The  body  of  evidence  is  numerous  and  respectable,  declaring  that 
a  person  who  has  laboured  under  the  Cowpox  fever  and  local  erup- 
tion, is  not  susceptible  of  the  Smallpox.  It  does  not  appear  that  a 
single  well  authenticated  contravening  instance  has  fallen  under 
observation.  But  I  do  not  apprehend  that  accurate  and  able  rea- 
soners  will  consider  the  fact  as  completely  established,  though,  I 
doubt  not,  they  will  allow  that  the  testimonies  now  produced  greatly 
confirm  the  probability,  and  that  the  cautious  appropriation  of  it 
in  practice  is  warrantable.  (P.  64.) 

In  this  summary  we  perceive  the  limit  and  imperfection 
of  Pearson's  Inquiry.  Smallpox  did  follow  Cowpox  :  it 
was  well  known  that  it  did  :  and  Dr.  Ingenhousz  ascer- 
tained the  fact  as  soon  as  he  looked  for  it.  Moreover 
Pearson  showed  himself  ignorant  of  Jenner's  position, 
who,  recognising  the  fallacy  of  the  rural  superstition, 
was  compelled  to  discriminate  Cowpox  as  genuine  and 
spurious — the  genuine  being  the  variety  derived  from 
Horsegrease. 

Upon  Jenner's  assertion  that  Cowpox  was  unaltered  by 
transmission  from  arm  to  arm,  Pearson  remarked,  "The 
fact  remained  to  be  proved."  That  Cowpox  produced  a 
harmless  ailment  was  not,  he  thought,  to  be  hastily  as- 
sumed. Dr.  William  Heberden  had  recently  inoculated 
800  poor  persons  at  Hungerford  without  a  mishap,  and 


PEARSON'S  INQUIRY.  HI 

1700  had  passed  through  Dr.  Woodville's  hands  in  the 
current  year  (1798)  with  only  two  deaths ;  yet  how 
erroneous  would  be  to  argue  that  variolous  inoculation 
was  harmless  from  such  special  experience  ! 

Such  instances  of  success  can  only  be  attributed  to  a  certain 
favourable  epidemic  state  of  the  human  constitution  itself,  existing 
at  particular  times,  for  the  proportion  of  deaths  from  inoculation  is 
usually  much  greater,  owing,  probably,  to  certain  unfavourable 
epidemic  states.  (P.  67.) 

If  Cowpox  remained  unchanged  in  transmission  from 
arm  to  arm,  it  would  be  no  harmless  ailment ;  for  the 
evidence  was  distinct  that  it  was  frequently  a  severe  one. 
For  example,  Edinburgh  told  Pearson  that  when  suffer- 
ing from  Cowpox  he  had  to  give  up  work  and  go  into  an 
hospital;  and  Grimshaw  that  the  disease  was  uncom- 
monly painful,  with  swellings  in  his  armpits,  sore  to  the 
touch ;  and  the  servant  at  Rhodes's  farm  in  the  Hamp- 
stead  Road,  who  had  seen  much  Cowpox  in  Wiltshire 
and  Gloucestershire,  said  the  milkers  were  sometimes  so 
ill  that  they  had  to  keep  their  beds  for  several  days, 
though  none  ever  died  of  the  Cowpox  fever.  If,  how- 
ever, by  transmission  from  arm  to  arm,  Cowpox  became 
milder,  it  was  not  improbable  that  at  the  same  time  it 
would  lose  more  or  less  of  its  protective  efficacy. 

Pearson  might  have  seen  and  added,  that  resistance  to 
inoculated  Smallpox,  when  the  constitution  was  in  no 
humour  for  Smallpox,  was  no  proof  that  the  same  con- 
stitution would  resist  Smallpox  when  epidemic,  or  in 
condition  for  the  evolution  of  the  disease. 

Pearson  likewise  took  objection  to  Jenner's  evidence 
(such  as  it  was)  that  it  was  possible  to  take  Cowpox 
after  Cowpox,  but  not  Smallpox  after  Cowpox ;  saying — 

Most  of  professional  men  are  extremely  reluctant  in  yielding 
assent  to  this  statement.  Some,  indeed,  reject  it  in  the  most  un- 
qualified terms.  That  Cowpox  follows  Cowpox  appears  certain, 
but  that  Cowpox  should  avert  Smallpox,  and  not  avert  itself  ap- 
pears incredible.  (P.  44.) 

Here  we  see  Pearson  on  the  verge  of  discovery  of  the 
illusion,  but  with  all  his  training  and  Yorkshire  shrewd- 


142  VACCINATION. 


ness  he  lost  the  scent,  and  allowed  himself  to  be  deceived ; 
and  not  only  deceived,  but  to  become  a  prime  mover  in 
the  deception  of  the  world.  Jenner  felt  the  difficulty 
and  replied — 

CHELTENHAM,  27tli  September,  1798. 

MY  DEAR  SIR, — You  may  be  assured  that  a  person  may  be  repeat- 
edly affected,  both  locally  and  generally,  by  the  Cowpox,  two  instances 
of  which  I  have  adduced,  and  have  many  more  in  my  recollection  ; 
but,  nevertheless,  I  have  some  reason  to  suspect  that  my  discrimi- 
nations have  not  been,  till  lately,  sufficiently  nice Certain 

it  is,  that  the  skin  is  always  subject  to  the  ulcerative  effects  of  the 
virus  ;  but  whether  the  constitution  can  repeatedly  feel  the  primary 
effects  of  it,  I  have  experiments  in  view  to  determine.  (P.  99.) 

This  passage  is  commended  to  those  who  hold  with 
Mr.  John  Simon  that  Jenner  delivered  to  the  world  "  a 
Master-piece  of  Medical  Induction,"  the  fruit  of  thirty 
years  of  incessant  thought,  watching  and  experiment. 
It  is  plain  that  in  1798  the  very  elements  of  the  problem 
were  by  him  undetermined,  and  the  most  obvious  objec- 
tions unforeseen  and  unconsidered. 

Pearson's  strongest  opposition  was  reserved  for  the 
asserted  origin  of  Cowpox  in  Horsegrease.  He  said — 

It  has  no  better  support  than  the  coincidence  in  some  instances 
of  the  two  diseases  in  the  same  farm  in  which  the  same  servants 
are  employed  among  the  Horses  and  Cows. 

I  have  found  that  in  many  farms  the  Cowpox  breaks  out  although 
no  new-comer  has  been  introduced  to  the  herd ;  although  the 
milkers  do  not  come  in  contact  with  the  Horses ;  although  there 
are  no  greased  Horses ;  and  even  although  there  are  no  Horses  kept 
on  the  farm. 

It  appears  that  the  Cowpox  does  not  break  out  under  the  most 
favourable  circumstances,  if  it  be  occasioned  by  the  Grease.  "  I 
have  had,"  writes  Sir  Isaac  Pennington,  Cambridge,  14th  Septem- 
ber, 1798,  "Dr.  Jenner's  book  some  weeks,  and  the  particulars 
stated  in  it  are  really  astonishing.  I  have  made  inquiries  upon  the 
subject  at  Cottenham  and  Willingham,  in  which  two  parishes  3000 
milch  Cows  are  kept ;  also  a  great  many  Horses  of  the  rough- 
legged  cart  kind  (much  liable  to  the  scratches  or  grease)  half  the 
parishes  being  under  the  plough,  and  the  men  much  employed  in 
milking.  But  I  cannot  find  that  any  pustulous  eruptions  on  the 
teats  of  the  Cows,  or  on  the  hands  of  the  milkers,  have  ever  been 
heard  of."  (P.  82.) 

In   the  opening   of   his  Inquiry,  Pearson  was  good 


PEARSON'S  INQUIRY.  143 

enough  to  say  of  Jenner,  "  I  would  not  pluck  a  sprig  of 
laurel  from  the  wreath  that  decorates  his  brow  " ;  but, 
disputing  the  origin  of  genuine  Cowpox  in  Horsegrease, 
he  might  have  asked  himself,  what  sprig  of  laurel  he  had 
left.  That  Cowpox  originated  in  Horsegrease  was  not 
Jenner's  discovery.  As  Pearson  ascertained  in  the 
London  milk  farms,  "  There  was  such  a  notion  entertained 
in  several  parts  of  the  country,  whatever  might  be  its 
foundation."  (P.  86.)  But  the  definition  of  Horsegrease 
Cowpox  as  the  form  of  Cowpox  that  justified  the  faith 
of  the  country-folk  in  the  power  of  the  disease  to  avert 
Smallpox,  was  Jenner's  solitary  distinction — the  principle 
and  motive  of  his  Inquiry,  which,  to  prove  fallacious, 
was  to  extinguish  his  title  to  regard.  Cowpox  apart 
from  Horsegrease  was  clearly  taught  by  Jenner  to  have 
no  influence  on  the  constitution,  and  to  be  attended  with 
no  erysipelas.  "  Let  me  call  your  attention,"  he  wrote  to 
Pearson,  27th  September,  1798,  "  to  a  similarity  between 
the  Smallpox  and  the  Cowpox  when  inoculated.  The 
symptoms  of  absorption  first  disturb  the  system,  and, 
secondly,  the  system  feels  the  consequences  of  the  local 
sores.  Exactly  so  with  the  Cowpox;  and  as  the  Cow- 
pox  inflammation  is  always  of  the  erysipelatous  kind, 
when  it  spreads  over  the  skin  to  any  great  extent,  it 
produces  symptoms  not  unlike  the  confluent  Smallpox." 
(P.  100.) 

Pearson  foresaw  that  if  the  principle  of  inoculation 
with  Cowpox  were  established  it  would  lead  to  other 
applications — 

The  Cow  Poison  appears  to  alter  the  human  constitution,  so  as 
to  render  it  insusceptible  of  a  different  morbific  poison,  namely,  the 
variolous  in  producing  the  Smallpox.  This  fact  is,  I  believe,  quite 
a  novelty  in  physiology  and  pathology :  it  indicates  a  new  principle 
in  the  mode  of  prophylactic  practice.  And  we  now  see  a  principle 
upon  which  diseases  from  various  other  morbific  poisons  may  pos- 
sibly be  prevented  from  taking  place,  such  as  the  Measles,  Ulcerous 
Sore  Throat,  Hooping  Cough,  Syphilis,  etc.,  namely,  in  consequence 
of  destroying  the  excitability  of  the  constitution  to  such  poisons  by 
the  agency  of  different,  and  perhaps  less  hurtful  ones.  Whether 
the  Cowpox  preserves  the  constitution  from  other  morbific  poisons, 
besides  the  variolous,  is  an  undecided  question.  (P.  79.) 


144  VACCINATION. 


Like  Jenner,  he  also  recognised  in  Cowpox  a  counter- 
irritant — a  safe  sort  of  fever  that  might  be  used  to  drive 
off  other  diseases — 

If  it  be  true  that  the  same  constitution  is  liable  to  undergo  re- 
peatedly the  Cowpox,  to  which  distemper  no  one  has  fallen  a  victim, 
practitioners  may  avail  themselves  of  this  means  of  exciting  an 
innocent  fever  as  a  remedy  of  various  disorders  ;  it  being  a  truth, 
admitted  by  men  of  experience,  that  fevers  are  occasionally  effica- 
cious remedies,  especially  for  inveterate  chronic  maladies,  such  as 
Epilepsy,  Hysteria,  Insanity,  St.  Vitus's  Dance,  Tetanus,  skin  de- 
formities and  diseases,  etc.  (P.  81.) 

Nor  was  the  notion  without  warrant,  for  Smallpox 
itself  was  credited  with  a  double  action  as  a  generator 
and  exterminator  of  disease — 

A  disposition  to  certain  diseases,  and  even  diseases  themselves, 
are  not  rarely  brought  on  by  the  Smallpox;  but  sometimes  also 
dispositions  to  diseases,  and  diseases  themselves  of  the  most  invet- 
erate kind  are  removed  by  the  Smallpox.  (P.  77.) 

In  one  respect,  Jenner  showed  himself  superior  to 
Pearson,  namely,  in  offering  some  explanation  of  Cowpox. 
Pearson  accepted  the  disease  on  the  rural  terms — as  an 
eruption  on  Cows  attended  with  no  serious  illness.  If 
in  any  way  such  Pox  was  equivalent  to  Smallpox,  it  was 
inexplicable  that  it  should  be  limited  to  the  udder  and 
teats  of  milch  cattle,  and  that  males,  and  females  not  in 
milk,  should  be  exempt  from  infection.  A  disease  so 
unique  wanted  accounting  for;  but  Pearson  made  no 
attempt  to  account  for  it,  nor  gave  any  sign  that  he 
apprehended  the  difficulty,  Jenner,  on  the  other  hand, 
accounted  for  Pox  on  the  Cow  by  referring  it  to  infection 
from  the  Horse  conveyed  by  the  milkers,  which  explana- 
tion Pearson  rejected.  But  in  giving  Jenner  credit  for 
so  much,  let  it  not  be  for  over  much.  Whilst  he  ascribed 
Cowpox  to  a  credible  cause,  he  did  not  recognise  his 
advantage  and  summon  gainsayers  to  explain  how  Cow- 
pox,  as  described  by  them,  could  exist  without  Bullpox. 
On  the  contrary,  as  we  shall  see,  Jenner  submitted  to  be 
silenced  on  this  point  for  reasons  far  from  creditable. 


WOODVILLE,  PEARSON  AND  JENNER.  145 


CHAPTER  V. 

WOODVILLE,  PEARSON  AND  JENNER. 

ANOTHER  early  and  earnest  examiner  of  Jenner's  Inquiry 
was  Dr.  William  Woodville,  physician  to  the  London 
Smallpox  and  Inoculation  Hospital.  He  was  a  Cumber- 
land man,  born  at  Cockermouth,  1752 ;  a  member  of  the 
Society  of  Friends.  An  ardent  botanist,  he  turned  two 
acres  of  the  ground  around  the  Hospital  at  King's  Cross 
into  a  botanic  garden,  which  he  maintained  at  his  own 
expense.  He  died  of  a  chronic  pulmonary  complaint  in 
1805,  and  in  his  last  illness  had  himself  removed  from 
his  house  in  Ely  Place  to  the  Hospital  for  the  sake  of 
the  garden  and  the  country  air. 

Woodville  was  eager  to  try  cowpox,  but  Jenner  had 
no  supply,  nor  could  any  be  had  elsewhere.  He  there- 
fore resorted  to  horsegrease,  but  could  make  nothing  of 
it.  In  his  own  words — 

Conceiving  that  the  distemper  might  be  produced  by  inoculating 
the  nipples  of  Cows  with  the  matter  of  the  grease  of  Horses,  I  pro- 
ceeded to  try  whether  the  Cowpox  could  be  actually  excited  in  this 
manner.  Numerous  experiments  were  accordingly  made  upon 
different  Cows  with  the  matter  of  grease,  taken  in  the  various  stages 
of  that  disease,  but  without  producing  the  desired  effect. 

Neither  were  inoculations  with  this  matter,  nor  with  several 
other  morbid  secretions  in  the  Horse,  productive  of  any  effects  upon 
the  human  subject.* 

Thrice  in  person  did  Woodville  submit  to  inoculation 
with  horsegrease,  but  in  vain.  Others  in  London  and 
elsewhere  attempted  to  raise  pox  on  cows  in  the  same 
way  without  result  save  malediction  on  Jenner  for 
originating  such  a  troublesome  quest. 

Thus  closed  1798  with  many  anxious  to  try  the  new 
prescription  whenever  there  was  a  chance.  Early  in  the 
new  year,  there  was  a  cry  in  London,  'Tis  found !  'tis 
found !  In  Harrison's  dairy,  Gray's  Inn  Road,  close  by  the 

*  Reports  of  a  Series  of  Inoculations  for  the  Variola  Vaccinceor  Cow- 
pox.  London,  1799. 

10 


146  VACCINATION. 

Smallpox  Hospital,  cowpox  was  discovered,  and  thither 
hastened  Woodville,  Pearson,  Sir  Joseph  Banks,  Sir 
William  Watson,  Dr.  Garthshore,  Dr.  Willan,  and  other 
medical  men;  and  in  their  presence,  on  19th  January, 
Woodville  inoculated  six  patients  with  the  pox.*  The 
eruptions  on  the  cows'  teats  were  diligently  compared 
with  the  description  and  plates  in  Jenner's  Inquiry,  and 
pronounced  identical.  Four-fifths  of  the  200  cows  in  the 
dairy  became  affected,  those  not  in  milk  escaping  the 
disease ;  likewise  some  of  the  milkers,  the  first  being- 
Sarah  Rice,  who  had  undergone  smallpox  in  childhood — 
a  proof  that  smallpox  did  not  prevent  cowpox.  "At  the 
same  time,"  wrote  Dr.  Pearson,  "  I  received  the  agreeable 
intelligence  that  the  disease  was  also  raging  in  the 
largest  stock  of  cows  on  the  New  Road,  near  Paddington, 
to  which  no  one  could  gain  admittance  but  myself." 

With  cowpox  thus  provided  in  abundance,  Pearson 
and  Woodville  set  to  work — Woodville  at  his  Hospital, 
and  Pearson  in  private  practice.  Be  it  observed,  how- 
ever, that  this  London  cowpox  was  not  Jenner's  cowpox. 
It  was  not  horsegrease  cowpox,  but  the  variety  stigma- 
tised by  Jenner  as  spurious.  How  Pearson  and  Wood- 
ville pressed  forward  with  their  enterprise  appears  from 
the  following  letter,  enclosing  cowpox  threads,  sent  by 
Pearson  to  two  hundred  medical  practitioners  throughout 
the  United  Kingdom — 

LEICESTER  SQUARE,  12th  March,  1799. 

Sir, — I  hope  you  will  pardon  me  for  taking  the  liberty  to  inform 
you  (by  way  of  additional  evidence  to  the  testimonies  I  have  pub- 
lished on  the  subject  of  the  Cowpox)  that  upwards  of  160  patients, 
from  two  weeks  to  forty  years  of  age,  principally  infants,  have  been 
inoculated  since  the  20th  January  last  by  Dr.  Woodville  and  my- 
self, separately 

Not  one  mortal  case  has  occurred. 

Not  one  of  the  patients  has  been  dangerously  ill.  .  .  . 

None  of  the  patients,  namely  above  60,  inoculated  with  the  Small- 
pox, subsequently  to  the  Vaccine  Disease,  took  the  infection.  .  .  . 

In  many  of  the  cases  eruptions  of  the  body  appeared,  some  of 
which  could  not  be  distinguished  from  the  Smallpox. 

*  J.  C.  Wachsel  in  London  Medical  Repository,  1819,  p.  257. 


WOODVILLE,  PEARSON  AND  JENNER.  147 

I  have  sent  the  matter  of  Cowpox  pustules  on  the  thread  enclosed, 
in  order,  if  you  approve  of  the  inquiry,  to  inoculate  with  it ;  and  I 
entreat  you  to  favour  me  with  the  result  of  your  trials  :  but  I  must 
trouble  you  to  apply  the  test  of  inoculating  with  variolous  matter 
subsequently  to  the  vaccine  disorder. 

GEORGE  PEARSON,  M.D.,  F.R.S. 

P.S. — I  am  happy  to  be  able  to  state  that  at  Berkeley,  Dr.  Jenner 
has  continued  his  trials  of  inoculation  with  vaccine  matter  sent 
from  London  with  good  success. 

Jenner  was  of  an  indolent  disposition,  but  the  part 
Pearson  was  playing  stung  him  to  action.  His  nephew, 
Rev.  G.  C.  Jenner,  wrote  to  him  from  London,  and  thus 
roused  his  jealousy — 

NORFOLK  STREET,  llth  March,  1799. 

After  what  Mr.  Paytherus  has  written  to  you  it  will  be  needless 
for  me  to  say  anything  to  urge  the  necessity  of  your  coming  to 
town  to  wear  the  laurels  you  have  gained,  or  to  prevent  their  being 
placed  on  the  brows  of  another 

Dr.  Pearson  is  going  to  send  circular  letters  to  medical  gentle- 
men to  let  them  know  that  he  will  supply  them  with  Cowpox  mat- 
ter upon  their  application  to  him,  by  which  means  he  will  be  the 
chief  person  known  in  the  business,  and  consequently  deprive  you 
of  that  merit,  or  at  least  a  great  share  of  it,  which  is  BO  justly  your 
due.  Dr.  Pearson  gave  a  public  lecture  on  the  Cowpox  on  Satur- 
day, and  adopted  your  opinions,  except  with  regard  to  the  proba- 
bility of  the  disease  originating  in  Horses'  heels All  your 

friends  agree  that  now  is  your  time  to  establish  your  fame  and  for- 
tune ;  but  if  you  delay  taking  a  personal  active  part  any  longer, 
the  opportunity  will  be  lost  for  ever. — Your  affectionate  nephew, 
G.  C.  JENNER. 

Jenner  at  once  communicated  the  alarming  intelligence 
to  his  friend  Gardner  with  a  sly  suggestion  for  counter- 
action— 

BERKELEY,  Wednesday. 

A  letter  just  received  from  G.  Jenner  informs  me  that  Dr.  Pear- 
son on  Saturday  gave  a  public  lecture  on  the  Cowpox,  and  that  it 
was  publicly  exhibited  at  Sir  Joseph  Banks's  on  Sunday  evening. 
He  has  also  given  out  that  he  will  furnish  any  gentleman  at  a  dis- 
tance with  the  virus. 

As  this  is  probably  done  with  the  view  of  showing  himself  as  the 
first  man  in  the  concern,  should  not  some  neatly  drawn  paragraphs 
appear  from  time  to  time  in  the  public  prints,  by  no  means  reflect- 
ing on  the  conduct  of  P.,  but  just  to  keep  the  idea  publicly  alive 
that  P.  was  not  the  author  of  the  discovery — I  mean  of  Cowpox 
Inoculation. — Yours  truly,  E.  J. 


148  VACCINATION. 


As  human  nature  exists,  it  was  not  extraordinary  that 
Jenner  should  feel  anxious  over  the  occupation  of  ground 
he  considered  his  own ;  but  at  the  same  time  it  is  obvious, 
that  Pearson  had  done  nothing  wrong,  nothing  that  was 
not  allowable,  nothing  indeed  that  was  not  praiseworthy. 
He  allowed  Jenner  full  credit  for  having  advertised  the 
Gloucestershire  faith  in  cowpox,  and  for  the  production 
of  certain  evidence  for  that  faith ;  but  he  set  aside 
Jenner's  prescription  of  horsegrease  cowpox,  and  was 
making  use  of  a  form  of  cowpox  that  Jenner  had  ex- 
plicitly condemned.  Whilst  Jenner,  too,  had  excited 
curiosity,  he  did  nothing,  or  could  do  nothing,  to  satisfy 
it ;  and  it  was  idle  to  expect  the  world  to  await  his  con- 
venience :  nor  was  Pearson  the  man  to  rest  content  where 
action  was  possible.  As  he  said — 

From  the  time  of  the  publication  of  the  Inquiry  in  June,  1798, 
the  author  contributed  no  farther  inoculated  cases  to  the  end  of 
that  year  ;  nor  could  I  do  more  than  investigate  the  history  of  the 
Cowpox  principally  by  inquiries  among  provincial  physicians  and 
farmers,  from  whom  I  was  enabled  to  confirm  some  of  the  facts  in 
Dr.  Jenner's  book,  and  to  render  doubtful  or  disprove  others,  and 
to  bring  to  light  new  observations.* 

Jenner  was  not  slow  to  repond  to  his  nephew's  sum- 
mons to  London.  He  left  Berkeley  on  the  21st  of  March, 
and  remained  in  town  until  the  llth  of  June,  visiting 
medical  men,  asserting  his  own  claims,  and  counter-acting 
the  operations  of  Pearson  and  Woodville. 

In  Dr.  Pearson's  circular,  it  will  be  observed,  that  he 
described  inoculation  with  cowpox  as  attended  with 
eruptions  in  some  cases,  which  could  not  be  distinguished 
from  smallpox.  So  far  as  Pearson  and  Woodville  were 
concerned,  it  was  an  unfortunate  statement,  and  gave 
Jenner  an  advantage  over  them  which  he  used  unspar- 
ingly to  their  discredit. 

Jenner's  claim  for  inoculation  with  cowpox  was,  that 
it  excited  a  fever  that  was  not  infectious  and  was  with- 
out pustular  eruptions ;  and  here  was  Dr.  Pearson  setting 
up  as  his  critic,  and  Dr.  Woodville  assuming  to  develop 

*  Examination  of  Report  of  Committee  of  House  of  Commons,  1802. 


WOODVILLE,  PEARSON  AND  JENNER.  149 

his  practice,  and  producing  a  disorder  that  was  indis- 
tinguishable from  smallpox !  Such  presumption  and 
ignorance  deserved  to  be  hooted. 

What  was  the  explanation  ?  Simply  this :  that  Wood- 
ville  conducted  some  of  his  cowpox  inoculations  in  the 
variolous  atmosphere  of  his  Hospital,  and  that  he  thereby 
communicated  smallpox  and  cowpox  simultaneously.  In 
a  scientific  sense,  the  experience  was  valuable ;  it  proved 
that  it  was  possible  to  have  cowpox  and  smallpox  at  the 
same  time — that  neither  disease  superseded  or  nullified 
the  other. 

Woodville  tried  to  vindicate  himself,  and  in  his  failure 
magnified  Jenner's  triumph  still  further.  Yet  he  had 
much  that  was  reasonable  to  say  for  himself.  For 
example,  he  had  transmitted  to  Jenner  some  of  the  virus 
from  one  of  the  first  of  his  cowpox  inoculations  in 
January,  and  with  it  Jenner  operated  on  twenty  persons, 
reporting  to  Woodville — 

BERKELEY,  February,  1799. 

The  rise,  progress,  and  termination  of  the  pustules  created  by 
the  virus  were  exactly  that  of  the  true  Cowpox. 

Nevertheless,  wrote  Woodville — 

This  virus  which  Dr.  Jenner  declared  to  be  perfectly  pure  and 
genuine  was  taken  from  the  arm  of  an  hospital  patient  who  had 
310  pustules,  all  of  which  suppurated. 

Woodville  also  argued,  that  "  Cowpox,  as  casually 
produced  by  milking  infected  cows,  differs  considerably 
from  that  which  is  the  effect  of  inoculation";  which 
Jenner  attested  in  saying — 

Four  or  five  servants  were  inoculated  at  a  farm  contiguous  to 
Berkeley  last  summer  with  matter  just  taken  from  an  infected 
Cow.  A  little  inflammation  appeared  on  all  their  arms,  but  died 
away  without  producing  a  pustule  ;  yet  all  these  servants  caught 
the  disease  within  a  month  afterwards  from  milking  the  infected 
Cows,  and  some  of  them  had  it  severely.* 

Others  maintained  that  the  cowpox  which  saved  milk- 
maids from  smallpox  was  a  much  severer  affection  than 

*  Further  Observations  on  the  Variola  Vaccince,  1799. 


150  VACCINATION. 


that  induced  by  Jenner's  lancet,  and  that  it  was  folly  to 
assume  their  equivalence.  There  was  force  in  the  argu- 
ment; for  every  one  then  knew  how  much  the  issue 
of  smallpox  inoculation  depended  on  the  mode  of  its 
performance.  The  infection  when  communicated  through 
the  skin  was  usually  much  less  severe  than  when  com- 
municated by  incision ;  and  Jenner  related  how  a  country 
inoculator,  who  liked  to  "  cut  deep  enough  to  see  a  bit  of 
fat,"  was  the  death  of  his  patients  on  every  side.  The 
human  body  is  of  infinite  delicacy  and  complexity,  and 
we  are  sure  to  find  ourselves  at  fault  when  we  deal  with 
its  mysteries  according  to  our  crude  and  inanimate  logic. 
It  is  by  experiment  and  not  by  syllogism  that  physio- 
logical truth  is  verified. 

Whatever  might  be  the  perils,  immediate  or  remote,  of 
inoculation  with  cowpox,  it  was  not  attended  with  small- 
pox eruption ;  and  at  last  it  became  manifest  to  Wood- 
ville  himself,  that  the  virus  he  had  used,  and  the  virus 
he  had  distributed,  which  had  produced  such  eruption, 
was  the  virus  of  smallpox. 

After  much  controversy  and  many  experiments  these 
conclusions  were  arrived  at — 

1.  That  when  a  person  was  inoculated  with  smallpox 
and   cowpox   about   the   same   time,  both   inoculations 
proved  effective.     There  was  a  pustular  eruption  on  the 
skin  from  the  smallpox,  and  the  cowpox  vesicle  reached 
maturity  in  the  usual  number  of  days. 

2.  These  effects  took  place,  without  much  variation,  in 
all  cases  where  the  interval  between  the  two  inoculations 
did  not  exceed  a  week ;  but — 

3.  When   the  smallpox   matter  was  inserted  on  the 
ninth  day  after  the  inoculation  with  cowpox,  its  action 
seemed  to  be  wholly  precluded.* 

That  is  to  say,  for  a  time — until  the  influence  of  the 
vaccine  fever  had  worn  off.  Some  fancied  that  smallpox 
when  inoculated  with  cowpox  generated  a  hybrid  pox 
that  was  more  efficacious  than  either.  There  was  occa- 

*  On  Vaccine  Inoculation.     By  Robert  Willan,  M.D.     London,  1806. 


WOODVILLE,  PEARSON  AND  JENNER.  151 

sionally  some  interaction  of  the  diseases,  as  of  a  subdued 
activity  in  each,  but  generally  they  proceeded  together 
unaffected,  the  cowpox  maintaining  its  characteristics  in 
the  midst  of  a  crop  of  smallpox. 

One  point  of  great  significance  in  Woodville's  experi- 
ence was  overlooked.  He  inoculated  with  cowpox  in  the 
Smallpox  Hospital,  and  some  of  his  patients  there  con- 
tracted smallpox,  who  certainly  were  not  inoculated  with 
smallpox,  either  accidentally  or  by  design.  The  lesson 
of  this  experience  was  unperceived,  and  though  it  has 
been  repeated  again  and  again,  is  rarely  acknowledged. 
Vaccination  in  presence  of  smallpox,  or  in  an  epidemic  of 
smallpox,  is  often  a  means  of  inducing  the  disease  it  is 
intended  to  prevent.  It  lights  the  fire ;  and  when  the 
fire  is  lighted,  it  is  said,  "  Ah !  it  must  have  been  a-light 
before."  When  we  have  a  mind  for  an  excuse,  our 
sophistry  is  usually  equal  to  the  requisition. 

The  New  Inoculation,  as  it  was  called,  grew  in  favour 
daily.  Woodville  and  Pearson  did  the  real  work  of 
publicity  and  promotion — Pearson  especially.  Within 
seven  months,  January  to  August,  1799,  they  performed 
2000  inoculations.  In  the  Philosophical  Journal, 
August,  1799,  Pearson  observed — 

In  Scotland  the  New  Inoculation  has  not  been  less  successful. 
Dr.  Anderson,  of  Leith,  informs  me  that  he  has  inoculated  above 
80  persons ;  that  Dr.  Duncan  has  begun  the  practice  in  Edinburgh 
and  that  it  has  been  introduced  in  Dundee,  Paisley,  and  Dalkeith. 

Nor  did  Pearson  limit  his  efforts  to  his  native  land. 
He  wrote — 

In  the  course  of  the  same  year,  1799,  I  extended  the  dissemina- 
tion of  the  vaccine  matter  to  Germany,  for  the  Princess  Louisa  at 
Berlin,  to  Hanover,  Vienna,  Geneva,  Lisbon,  Paris,  and  Boston, 
and  into  the  British  Army  through  Mr.  Keats. 

Jenner  regarded  much  of  this  activity  with  a  jealous 
eye  :  it  did  not  sufficiently  make  for  his  glory.  He  was 
anxious,  fretful,  helpless.  "  It  is  impossible  for  me,  single- 
handed,  to  combat  all  my  adversaries,"  was  his  whine. 
"  I  am  beset  on  all  sides  with  snarling  fellows,  and  so 
ignorant  withal  that  they  know  no  more  of  the  disease 


152  VACCINATION. 


they  write  about  than  the  animals  which  generate  it." 
In  order  to  keep  his  name  to  the  fore,  he  published  a 
second  pamphlet  in  the  spring  of  1799,  in  which  are 
several  details  of  biographical  interest. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

JENNER'S  FURTHER  OBSERVATIONS* 

THIS  pamphlet  appears  to  have  been  produced  with  many 
pains  and  extraordinary  apprehensions.  Jenner  wrote  to 
Gardner,  7th  March,  1799— 

Every  sentence  must  be  again  revised  and  weighed  in  the 
nicest  balance  that  human  intellect  can  invent.  The  eyes  of  the 
philosophic  and  medical  critic,  prejudiced  most  bitterly  against  the 
hypothesis,  will  penetrate  its  inmost  recesses,  and  discover  the 
minutest  flaw  were  it  suffered  to  be  present.  Language  I  put  out 
of  the  question :  it  is  the  matter  I  refer  to.f 

These  words  betray  excitement  for  which  there  was  no 
warrant;  and  when  we  turn  to  the  treatise  that  was  to  be 
weighed  sentence  by  sentence  in  the  nicest  of  balances,  it 
is  clearly  seen  that  its  author  was  a  weak-minded  crea- 
ture. It  is  little  more  than  a  gossip  about  Cowpox  with- 
out advance  upon  the  statements  of  the  Inquiry.  Indeed, 
he  sets  out  with  the  admission — 

Although  it  has  not  been  in  my  power  to  extend  the  Inquiry  into 
the  causes  and  effects  of  the  Variolse  Vaccinse  much  beyond  its 
original  limits,  yet,  perceiving  that  it  is  beginning  to  excite  a 
general  spirit  of  investigation,  I  think  it  is  of  importance,  without 
delay,  to  communicate  such  facts  as  have  since  occurred,  and  to 
point  out  the  fallacious  sources  from  whence  a  disease  resembling 
the  true  Variolas  Vaccines  might  arise,  with  the  view  of  preventing 
those  who  may  inoculate  from  producing  a  spurious  disease ;  and 
further,  to  enforce  the  precaution  suggested  in  the  former  Treatise 
on  the  subject,  of  subduing  the  inoculated  pustule  as  soon  as  it 
has  sufficiently  produced  its  influence  on  the  constitution.  (P.  69.) 

*  Further  Observations  on  the  Variolce  Vaccines.  By  Edward  Jenner, 
M.D.,  F.R.S.  London,  1799.  4to  pp,  73.  Reprinted  with  the  third 
edition  of  the  Inquiry  in  1801,  to  which  edition  my  references  apply. 

t  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  i.  p.  322. 


JENNER'S  FURTHER  OBSERVATIONS.  153 

Sometimes  when  it  is  objected  that  the  evidence  ad- 
duced in  the  Inquiry  was  hastily  collected,  meagre  and 
inconclusive,  it  is  replied,  "Yes,  but  recollect,  it  was 
merely  a  selection,  if  a  poor  one,  from  the  author's 
stores" — a  reply  which  Jenner  thus  renders  nugatory  in 
recording — 

My  late  publication  contains  a  relation  of  most  of  the  facts  which 
had  come  under  my  own  inspection  at  the  time  it  was  written, 
interspersed  with  some  conjectural  observations — (P.  70) — 

Which  is  exactly  what  any  perspicacious  reader  would 
infer  from  the  cases  adduced  in  the  Inquiry.  They 
were  Jenner's  best  and  his  all.  Meanwhile,  as  observed, 
he  had  been  able  to  do  little  in  extension  of  the  Inquiry; 
but  if  idle  and  helpless,  Dr.  Pearson  had  been  active — 

Since  then  Dr.  George  Pearson  has  established  an  inquiry  into 
the  validity  of  my  principal  assertion,  the  result  of  which  cannot 
but  be  highly  flattering  to  my  feelings.  It  contains  [Pearson's 
Inquiry]  not  a  single  case  which  I  think  can  be  called  an  exception 
to  the  fact  I  was  so  firmly  impressed  with — that  the  Cowpox 
protects  the  human  body  from  the  Smallpox.  (P.  70.) 

Here  we  have  a  distinct  mis-statement.  It  was  not 
Jenner's  "  fact "  that  Cowpox  protected  the  human  body 
from  Smallpox — that  was  a  widespread  superstition. 
His  contribution  to  the  question  was  a  definition  of  the 
Cowpox  effective  against  Smallpox,  namely  Horsegrease 
Cowpox,  other  Cowpox  being  adjudged  spurious.  Pear- 
son so  far  from  confirming  Jenner's  position,  deliberately 
set  it  aside.  He  not  only  accepted  the  rural  faith  in 
Cowpox  (which  Jenner  knew  to  be  unwarrantable),  but, 
when  he  proceeded  to  practice,  made  use  of  Cowpox 
which  owed  nothing  to  Horsegrease.  If  therefore  Pear- 
son's procedure  was  "  highly  flattering "  to  Jenner's 
feelings,  he  was  either  easily  pleased,  or  an  adept  in 
dissimulation. 

The  truth  is,  the  publication  of  Further  Observations 
was  designed  by  Jenner  to  loosen  himself  from  what  was 
definite  in  the  Inquiry,  so  that  he  might  be  able  to 
appropriate  whatever  might  result  from  the  investiga- 
tions and  experiments  then  going  on.  He  had  defined 


154  VACCINATION. 


prophylactic  Cowpox  as  Horsegrease  Cowpox,  but  Horse- 
grease  did  not  meet  with  favour,  nor  appear  likely  to 
answer ;  and  it  might  be  expedient  to  drop  it ;  and  thus 
he  described  the  ground  of  his  attachment  to  that  form 
of  specific — 

Firstly. — I  conceived  that  Horsegrease  was  the  source  of  Cowpox 
from  observing  that  where  the  Cowpox  had  appeared  among  the 
dairies  here  [Berkeley]  (unless  it  could  be  traced  to  the  introduc- 
tion of  an  infected  cow  or  servant)  it  had  been  preceded  at  the  farm 
by  a  Horse  diseased  in  the  manner  described,  which  Horse  had 
been  attended  by  some  of  the  milkers. 

Secondly. — From  its  being  a  popular  opinion  throughout  this 
great  dairy  country,  and  from  its  being  insisted  on  by  those  who 
here  attend  sick  cattle. 

Thirdly. — From  the  total  absence  of  the  disease  in  those  countries 
where  the  men  servants  are  not  employed  in  the  dairies. 

Fourthly. — From  having  observed  that  morbid  matter  generated 
by  the  Horse  frequently  communicates,  in  a  casual  way,  a  disease 
to  the  human  subject  so  like  the  Cowpox,  that  in  many  cases  it 
would  be  difficult  to  make  the  distinction  between  one  and  the 
other. 

Fifthly. — From  being  induced  to  suppose  from  experiments,  that 
some  of  those  who  had  been  thus  affected  from  the  Horse  resisted 
the  Smallpox. 

Sixthly. — From  the  progress  and  general  appearance  of  the 
pustule  on  the  arm  of  the  boy  whom  I  inoculated  with  matter  taken 
from  the  hand  of  a  man  infected  by  a  Horse  ;  and  from  the 
similarity  to  the  Cowpox  of  the  general  constitutional  symptoms 
which  foUowed.  (P.  91.) 

The  boy  inoculated  with  secondary  Horsegrease  was 
Baker,  Case  xviii.  of  the  Inquiry.  He  died  of  fever  in 
the  parish  workhouse  before  he  could  be  subjected  to  the 
variolous  test. 

Jenner's  drift  in  the  foregoing  propositions  was  ob- 
viously to  lighten  his  responsibility  for  the  advocacy  of 
Horsegrease  as  the  origin  of  Cowpox ;  but  in  doing  so  he 
deprived  himself  of  any  vestige  of  claim  as  a  discoverer. 
Cowpox  and  Horsegrease  as  preventives  of  Smallpox 
were  in  common  repute  ;  but  their  combination  as  Horse- 
grease  Cowpox  was  supposed  by  some  to  be  Jenner's 
peculiar  specific.  "  Not  so,"  he  said.  "  It  is  the  popular 
opinion  throughout  the  country  that  Cowpox  is  begotten 
of  Horsegrease ; "  and  proceeded  to  justify  his  prescription 


JENNER'S  FURTHER  OBSERVATIONS.  155 

by  the  popular  authority.  He  produced  a  letter  from 
Parson  Moore  of  Chalford  Hill  to  prove  how  in  November, 
1797,  his  Horse  had  the  Grease,  with  which  his  boy- 
servant  infected  the  Cow,  which  in  turn  infected  the 
lad  with  Cowpox,  although  eighteen  months  before  he 
had  been  inoculated,  and  severely  too,  with  Smallpox ; 
the  parson  adding — 

I  am  firmly  of  opinion  that  the  disease  in  the  heels  of  the  Horse, 
which  was  a  virulent  Grease,  was  the  origin  of  the  Servant's  and 
the  Cow's  malady.  (P.  94.) 

To  the  objection  that  attempts  to  raise  Cowpox  from 
Horsegrease  had,  so  far,  proved  failures,  Jenner  replied — 

The  experiments  published  by  Mr.  Simmons  of  Manchester  and 
others  on  the  subject,  with  the  view  of  refuting  the  origin  of  Cow- 
pox  in  Horsegrease,  appear  to  have  but  little  weight,  as  even  the 
Cowpock  Virus  itself,  when  repeatedly  introduced  into  the  sound 
nipples  of  Cows  by  means  of  a  lancet,  was  found  to  produce  no 
effect.  (P.  93.) 

Having  reached  this  point,  I  would  beg  the  reader  to 
pause  and  ask,  What  was  Jenner's  discovery  ?  It  was 
not  Cowpox ;  it  was  not  Horsegrease ;  it  was  not  Horse- 
grease  Cowpox ;  all  of  which  by  his  own  admission  were 
recognised  by  those  familiar  with  them  as  preventives  of 
Smallpox.  What  was  it  then? 

Nothing  is  more  conspicuous  in  the  Further  Observa- 
tions than  the  condition  of  ignorance  and  imbecility  they 
reveal.  As  we  have  seen,  critics  of  the  order  of  Mr.  John 
Simon  represent  Jenner's  Inquiry  as  a  Masterpiece  of 
Medical  Induction,  the  fruit  of  thirty  years  of  incessant 
thought,  observation  and  experiment;  whilst  the  patience, 
the  caution,  and  the  modesty  of  the  author  are  commended 
for  imitation.  Those  who  have  been  subjected  to  Mr. 
Simon's  homily  cannot  but  suffer  disenchantment  when 
they  come  face  to  face  with  the  facts.  Not  after  his 
thirty  years  of  asserted  research  could  Jenner  answer  the 
simple  question,  What  is  Cowpox  ?  Incredible  as  it  may 
appear,  the  following  was  his  deliverance  in  presence  of 
the  doubts  excited  by  the  discussion  of  his  original  com- 
munication— 


VACCINATION. 


To  what  length  pustulous  diseases  of  the  udder  and  nipples  of 
the  Cow  may  extend,  it  is  not  in  my  power  to  determine;  but 
certain  it  is,  that  these  parts  of  the  animal  are  subject  to  some 
variety  of  maladies  of  this  nature ;  and  as  many  of  these  eruptions 
(probably  all  of  them)  are  capable  of  giving  a  disease  to  the  human 
body,  would  it  not  be  discreet  for  those  engaged  in  this  investiga- 
tion to  suspend  controversy  and  cavil  until  they  can  ascertain  with 
precision  what  is  and  what  is  not  the  genuine  Cowpox?  Until 
experience  has  determined  which  is  the  true  Cowpock,  and  which 
is  spurious,  we  view  our  object  through  a  mist.  (P.  73.) 

Consider  this  declaration  after  thirty  years  of  incessant 
thought,  observation  and  experiment !  The  Masterpiece 
of  Medical  Induction  with  the  essential  fact  undeter- 
mined !  The  discovery  undiscovered !  And  the  reputed 
discoverer  sitting  ready  to  appropriate  any  praise  or 
profit  from  the  execution  by  others  of  his  proper  busi- 
ness !  Was  there  ever  such  an  exhibition  of  self-satisfied 
futility  ? 

Among  the  gossip  adduced  to  show  that  the  country 
folk  called  eruptions  Cowpox  that  were  not  Cowpox,  we 
learn  that  the  affection  induced  by  Horsegrease  was  thus 
designated — 

From  the  similarity  of  symptoms,  both  constitutional  and  local, 
between  the  Cowpox  and  the  disease  received  from  the  morbid 
matter  generated  by  a  Horse,  the  common  people  in  this  neighbour- 
hood, by  a  strange  perversion  of  terms,  frequently  call  it  the  Cow- 
pox.  (P.  95.) 

Wherefore,  he  argued,  many  thus  affected  may  fancy 
themselves  secure  from  Smallpox,  supposing  they  have 
suffered  Cowpox,  when  they  have  undergone  nothing 
but  Horsegrease ;  and  in  the  event  of  incurring  Small- 
pox, would  bring  discredit  on  the  virtue  of  true  Cowpox. 
How  easy  it  was  to  confound  the  two  diseases,  he  illus- 
trated from  the  case  of  William  Morris,  a  servant,  aged 
32,  who  applied  to  him  on  2nd  April,  1798 — 

His  symptoms  and  the  sores  on  his  hands  were  so  exactly  like 
the  Cowpox,  that  I  pronounced  he  had  taken  the  distemper  from 
milking  Cows.  He  assured  me  he  had  not  milked  a  Cow  for  more 
than  half  a  year,  and  that  his  master's  Cows  had  nothing  the 
matter  with  them.  I  then  asked  him  if  his  master  had  a  Greasy 
Horse,  which  he  answered  in  the  affirmative;  and  further  said, 


JENNER'S  FURTHER  OBSERVATIONS.  157 

that  he  had  constantly  dressed  him  twice  a  day  for  the  last  three 
weeks  or  more,  and  remarked  that  the  smell  of  his  hands  was 
much  like  that  of  the  Horse's  heels.  (P.  97.) 

Thus  Horsegrease  sores  so  simulated  those  of  Cowpox,. 
or  of  Horsegrease  Cowpox,  as  to  be  indistinguishable 
from  them.  At  this  time  it  was  Jenner's  opinion  that 
Horsegrease,  per  se,  afforded  no  protection  from  Small- 
pox: it  had  to  pass  through  the  Cow  to  acquire  its 
sovereign  efficacy.  The  opinion  is  noteworthy  in  view 
of  its  absolute  surrender  at  a  later  period,  when  the 
virus  from  the  Horse's  heel  came  to  be  described  by 
him  as  "  the  true  and  genuine  life  preserving  fluid,"  and 
was  used  by  him  for  inoculation  without  any  reference 
to  the  Cow. 

One  of  the  aims  of  Further  Observations  was  "to 
enforce  the  precaution  of  subduing  the  inoculated  pustule 
as  soon  as  it  had  sufficiently  produced  its  effect  on  the 
constitution."  True  Cowpox,  according  to  Jenner,  was 
a  serious  affection.  "The  sores  ate  into  the  flesh." 
(P.  77.)  They  were  capable  of  producing  violent  effects. 
They  were  attended  with  e/ysipelas.  "  They  closely 
resembled  Smallpox  of  the  confluent  sort."  (P.  111.) 
To  prolong  such  suffering  he  considered  useless,  for  the 
virus  conferred  its  protective  influence  on  the  consti- 
tution as  soon  as  received — 

The  symptoms  which  (as  in  the  accidental  Cowpox)  affect  the 
patient  with  severity,  are  entirely  secondary,  excited  by  the  irritat- 
ing processes  of  inflammation  and  ulceration ;  and  it  appears  to  me 
this  singular  virus  possesses  an  irritating  quality  of  a  peculiar  kind ; 
but  as  a  single  Cowpox  pustule  is  all  that  is  necessary  to  render  the 
variolous  virus  ineffectual,  and  as  we  possess  the  means  of  allaying 
the  irritation,  should  any  arise,  it  becomes  of  little  or  no  conse- 
quence. (P.  110.) 

The  means  for  allaying  the  irritation  were  mercurial 
ointment,  acetate  of  lead,  caustic  potash,  or  any  suitable 
escharotic — 

After  the  pustule  has  duly  exerted  its  influence,  I  should  prefer 
the  destroying  it  quickly  and  effectually  to  any  other  mode.  The 
term  caustic  to  a  tender  ear  (and  I  conceive  none  will  feel  more 
interested  in  this  Inquiry  than  the  anxious  guardians  of  a  nursery) 


158  VACCINATION. 


may  sound  harsh  and  unpleasing,  but  every  solicitude  that  may 
arise  on  this  account  will  no  longer  exist  when  it  is  understood  that 
the  pustule  in  a  state  fit  to  be  acted  upon  is  then  quite  superficial, 
and  that  it  does  not  occupy  the  space  of  a  silver  penny.  (P.  104.) 
I  would  not,  however,  recommend  any  application  to  subdue  the 
action  of  the  pustule  until  convincing  proofs  had  appeared  of  the 
patient  having  felt  its  effects  for  at  least  twelve  hours.  No  harm 
indeed  could  ensue  were  a  longer  period  to  elapse  before  the 
application  was  made  use  of.  In  short,  the  pustule  should  be 
suffered  to  have  as  full  an  effect  as  it  could,  consistently  with  the 
state  of  the  arm.  (P.  109.) 

Horsegrease  annoyed  Pearson — it  was  like  to  damn  the 
whole  thing ;  and  this  treatment  of  the  Cowpox  pustule 
was  scarcely  less  objectionable  to  him  and  to  Woodville.* 
It  gave  the  public,  they  thought,  a  sense  of  the  virulence 
of  Cowpox  that  was  wholly  unwarrantable;  and  they 
did  not  stay  to  consider  whether  what  Jenner  called  Cow- 
pox  in  Gloucestershire  and  what  they  called  Cowpox  in 
London  were  the  same  virus.  Jenner's  virus  was  Horse- 
grease  Cowpox ;  Pearson  and  Woodville's  was  Cowpox ; 
and  such  being  the  case,  the  diversity  of  symptoms  might 
have  been  accounted  for.  Anyhow,  the  difference  be- 
tween Jenner  and  Pearson  and  Woodville,  as  to  a  detail 
so  elementary,  shows  in  what  an  unfinished  condition 
the  Cowpox  prescription  was  shot  upon  the  world,  and 
affords  a  curious  commentary  on  the  Masterpiece  of 
Medical  Induction,  the  fruit  of  thirty  years  of  incessant 
thought,  observation  and  experiment.  At  the  same 
time  we  have  to  do  Jenner  the  justice  of  allowing  that 
at  this  date,  1799,  he  made  no  pretence  to  a  finished 
Masterpiece,  but  ingenuously  ascribed  the  prevalent  un- 
certainty to  "  the  present  early  stage  of  the  Cowpox 
Inquiry;  for  early,"  he  wrote,  "it  must  be  deemed." 
(P.  115.)  Early  it  was :  not  a  point  firmly  determined  : 
the  reverse  of  what  might  have  been  expected  after  thirty 
years  of  incessant  thought,  observation  and  experiment. 

*  Baron's  Life,  of  Jenner,  vol.  i.  p.  315. 


OPERATIONS  IN  LONDON,  1800.  159 


CHAPTER   VII. 

OPERATIONS  IN  LONDON,  1800. 

DR.  PEARSON  was  the  chief  actor  in  the  formation  of — 

The  Institution 

for  the  Inoculation  of  the  Vaccine  Pock, 

Warwick  Street,  Charing  Gross. 

Founded  2nd  December,  1799. 

In  April,  1801,  the  Institution  was  removed  to  a  more 
commodious  house,  5  Golden  Square.  It  was  the  first 
establishment  of  the  kind  in  the  world.  In  the  con- 
spectus of  the  Institution  it  was  stated — 

Of  above  4000  persons  who  have  had  the  inoculated  Cowpock  one 
only  has  died.  There  is,  however,  good  ground  for  believing  that 
the  proportional  mortality  will  be  even  less  than  here  stated. 

Not  a  single  well-attested  instance  has  been  produced  among 
more  than  2000  inoculated  with  Cowpock,  and  subsequently  with 
Smallpox,  of  the  Smallpox  being  taken,  although  many  were 
exposed  to  the  infectious  effluvia  of  that  disease.  Traditionally  the 
fact  is  established  from  time  immemorial  that  after  Cowpox  there 
is  no  Smallpox. 

It  may  be  fairly  affirmed,  that  the  inoculated  Cowpock  is 
generally  a  much  slighter  disease  than  the  inoculated  Smallpox ; 
and  that  the  proportion  of  severe  cases  in  the  latter  is  to  the  former 
as  at  least  ten  to  one. 

It  does  not  appear  the  genuine  Vaccine  Pock  can  be  propagated 
like  the  Smallpox  by  effluvia  from  persons  labouring  under  it. 
Hence  if  the  Vaccine  Inoculation  should  be  universally  instituted 
in  place  of  the  Smallpox,  it  is  reasonable  to  conclude,  that  this 
most  loathsome  and  fatal  malady  will  be  extinguished ;  and,  like 
the  Sweating- Sickness,  the  Plague,  certain  forms  of  leprosy,  etc., 
be  known  in  this  country  only  by  name. 

It  does  not  appear  that  the  Vaccine  Poison,  like  that  of  the 
Smallpox,  can  be  conveyed  so  as  to  produce  the  disease  indirectly 
from  diseased  persons,  by  adhering  to  clothes,  furniture,  bedding, 
letters,  etc.  Hence  no  danger  of  its  propagation  in  these  channels 
is  to  be  apprehended  from  the  universal  practice  of  the  inoculation 
of  the  Cowpock. 

It  has  been  found  that  a  person,  whose  constitution  has  distinctly 
undergone  the  Vaccine  Disease,  is  in  future  insusceptible  of  the 
same  disorder.  [Thus  re-vaccination  was  treated  as  impossible.] 


160  VACCINATION. 


Experience  shows,  that  there  is  no  reason  to  apprehend  the 
smallest  chance  of  deformities  of  the  skin  from  the  Vaccine 
Inoculation. 

The  extensive  practice  of  the  Vaccine  Inoculation  in  the  present 
year,  and  the  accounts  of  the  disease  in  the  casual  way  do  not 
show  that  any  other  disease  will  be  excited  subsequently. 

A  further  considerable  public  benefit  expected  is,  that  a  stock  of 
efficacious  Vaccine  Matter,  free  from  contamination  by  the  Small- 
pox, will  by  this  Institution  be  preserved  for  the  use  of  the  public. 

These  statements  are  interesting  as  showing  how  early 
the  rollicking  tunes  were  set  to  which  at  this  day  we 
are  expected  to  dance.  The  last  paragraph  is  noteworthy 
as  a  confession  under  Pearson's  hand  that  vaccine  poison 
had  got  confused  with  variolous,  and  that  the  mistake 
would  henceforth  be  avoided.  Jenner  maliciously  and 
persistently  used  this  mishap,  for  which  Woodville  was 
responsible,  to  discredit  Pearson  and  magnify  his  own 
pretensions ;  but,  as  Pearson  observed,  neither  Jenner 
nor  any  one  else  knew  that  it  was  possible  to  have  cow- 
pox  and  smallpox  simultaneously.  The  mistake  was  made, 
however ;  and,  as  is  the  function  of  mistakes,  knowledge 
was  enlarged.  Pearson's  behaviour  in  the  matter  was  as 
creditable  to  him  as  Jenner's  was  otherwise. 

The  Vaccine  Pock  Institution  was  organised  with  a 
staff  of  physicians,  surgeons,  and  apothecaries  of  the 
highest  London  respectability ;  and  as  it  was  desired  to 
have  the  benefit  of  Jenner's  name  (his  active  co-operation, 
as  a  resident  in  Gloucestershire,  being  out  of  the  question) 
Pearson  wrote  to  him — 

LONDON,  10th  December,  1799. 

We  have  made  some  progress  in  the  institution  of  a  charity  for 
inoculating  the  Vaccine  Pock.  I  do  not  know  that  I  can  confer 
any  honour  on  you  by  proposing  you  (if  I  am  able)  to  the  directors 
of  our  establishment,  nor  do  I  well  know  what  to  propose  to  you. 
It  occurs  to  me  that  it  might  not  be  disagreeable  to  you  to  be  an 
extra  corresponding  physician. 

No  expense  will  be  attached  to  your  situation  except  a  guinea  a 
year  as  a  subscriber ;  and  indeed  I  think  you  ought  to  be  exempt 
from  that,  as  you  cannot  send  any  patients :  but  you  may  depute 
some  proxy  in  town. 

I  confess  I  was  surprised  that  you  neither  called  nor  sent  for  me 
for  the  last  two  months  you  were  in  town.  However,  if  it  was 
because  you  were  too  much  occupied,  I  certainly  excuse  you. 


OPERATIONS  IN  LONDON,  1800.  161 


The  invitation  was  given  stiffly,  from  duty  more  than 
inclination.  Pearson  knew  very  well  why  Jenner,  furious 
with  jealousy,  had  kept  away  from  him;  and  he  was  thus 
answered — 

BERKELEY,  17th  December,  1799. 

SIR, — I  received  your  letter  of  the  10th  instant,  and  confess  I 
felt  surprised  at  the  information  it  conveys. 

It  appears  to  me  somewhat  extraordinary  that  an  institution 
formed  upon  so  large  a  scale,  and  that  has  for  its  object  the  inocula- 
tion of  the  Cowpox,  should  have  been  set  on  foot  and  almost  com- 
pletely organised  without  my  receiving  the  most  distant  intimation 
of  it.  The  institution  itself  cannot,  of  course,  but  be  highly  flatter- 
ing to  me,  as  I  am  thereby  convinced  that  the  importance  of  the 
fact  I  imparted  is  acknowledged  by  men  of  the  first  abilities.  But 
at  the  same  time  allow  me  to  observe  that  if  the  Vaccine  Inocula- 
tion, from  unguarded  conduct,  should  sink  into  disrepute  (and  you 
must  admit,  Sir,  that  in  more  than  one  instance  has  its  reputation 
suffered)  I  alone  must  bear  the  odium.  To  you,  or  any  other  of 
the  gentlemen  whose  names  you  mention  as  filling  up  the  medical 
departments,  it  cannot  possibly  attach. 

At  the  present  crisis  I  feel  so  sensibly  the  importance  of  the 
business  that  I  shall  certainly  take  an  early  opportunity  of  being 
in  London.  For  the  present  I  must  beg  leave  to  decline  the  honour 
intended  me. — I  remain,  Sir,  your  obedient  Servant, 

E.  JENNER.* 

Pearson's  reply  to  this  absurd  and  thoroughly  Jennerian 
letter  does  not  appear.  He  might  have  thanked  Jenner 
for  having  drawn  his  attention  to  cowpox,  and  have 
proceeded  to  point  out  that  beyond  that  service  he  and 
his  friends  owed  him  nothing,  nor  in  anywise  admitted 
his  guardianship.  Their  practice  was  at  complete  variance 
with  his  teaching.  .  He  had  prescribed  horsegrease  cowpox 
in  which  they  had  no  faith,  having  tried  to  produce  it  in 
vain.  On  the  other  hand,  they  were  operating  with  cow- 
pox  per  se,  which  he  had  condemned  as  useless,  being 
attended  with  no  erysipelas  or  constitutional  effect ;  and 
that  working  with  this  condemned  cowpox,  they  found 
themselves  producing  a  much  milder  disease,  and  were 
under  no  necessity  of  following  his  advice  and  destroy- 
ing the  pustule  formed  at  the  point  of  inoculation  with 
eschar otics ;  adding,  that  if  they  had  been  bound  to  his 

*  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  i.  p.  360. 
11 


VACCINATION. 


horsegrease  and  caustics,  they  would  have  made  no 
progress  with  the  public  whatever. 

Vaccine  Inoculation  might  be  good  for  mankind,  but 
it  was  to  be  something  better  for  Edward  Jenner.  There 
was  not  the  least  reason,  outside  his  jealousy  and  rapacity, 
why  he  should  not  have  congratulated  Pearson  on  his 
enterprise  and  promised  his  assistance.  As  to  claiming 
the  guardianship  of  Vaccine  Inoculation,  it  was  prepos- 
terous :  it  had  passed  wholly  beyond  his  control.  It  was 
Pearson's  complaint  that  Jenner  never  did  anything  useful 
after  the  publication  of  The  Inquiry.  He  left  to  others 
the  discovery  of  virus,  and  the  labour  and  responsibility 
of  experimenting,  and  only  appeared  on  the  scene  when 
there  was  some  disaster  whereat  he  could  play  the  part  of 
superior  person,  whilst  insisting  that  all  supposed  improve- 
ments and  successes  should  be  assigned  to  his  credit. 

Jenner  is  all-in-all  in  the  vaccinators'  hagiology,  but 
he  holds  the  place  at  the  cost  of  justice  to  Pearson  and 
Woodville.  To  prove  that  I  am  not  making  a  fanciful 
assertion,  let  me  cite  unprejudiced  contemporary  evidence. 
Dr.  Paterson  of  Montrose  in  a  communication  to  the 
Medical  and  Physical  Journal,  dated  25th  May,  1801, 
observed — 

While  we  are  irresistibly  led  to  join  the  wondering,  the  grateful 
throng,  in  paying  the  just  tribute  of  applause  to  Dr.  Jenner,  the 
immortal  discoverer,  we  must,  at  the  same  time,  confess  how  much 
we  are  indebted  to  the  ingenious  and  benevolent  Dr.  Pearson  for 
bringing,  in  such  a  handsome  manner  as  he  did,  the  business 
before  the  public ;  thereby  exciting,  all  at  once,  a  universal,  an 
unparalleled  quest  of  investigation,  and  furnishing,  by  innumerable 
and  satisfactory  experiments,  a  complete  confirmation  of  the  noble 
discovery. 

Here,  we  may  observe  afresh,  that  Pearson  did  not 
confirm  Jenner's  "  noble  discovery."  On  the  contrary, 
his  use  of  cowpox  was  at  distinct  variance  with  Jenner's 
prescription  of  horsegrease  cowpox,  and  with  his  con- 
demnation of  cowpox.  Jenner,  as  we  shall  see,  followed 
Pearson :  Pearson  did  nothing  to  confirm  Jenner. 

Woodville  lent  his  powerful  influence  as  head  of  the 
Smallpox  Hospital  to  establish  the  New  Inoculation. 


OPERATIONS  IN  LONDON,  1800.  163 

He  put  Jenner's  prescription  to  the  test  with  perfect 
sincerity  and  admirable  courage,  suffering  himself  to  be 
thrice  inoculated  with  horsegrease  in  order  to  come  at  the 
truth;*  and  only  resorted  to  cowpox  when  he  found  horse- 
grease  cowpox  unattainable.  Mr.  Anthony  Highmore, 
surgeon,  speaking  over  Woodville's  grave  in  1805,  ex- 
claimed— 

Who  that  have  felt  the  benefits  of  Vaccination  will  not  teach 
their  children,  and  their  children's  children,  to  bless  the  name  of 
Woodville  when  they  bless  the  name  of  Jenner. 

Yet  Pearson  and  Woodville,  who  made  the  New  Inocu- 
lation practical  and  practicable,  were  pursued  by  Jenner 
with  implacable  animosity,  stigmatising  their  mishaps 
and  appropriating  their  apparent  successes. 

To  publish  a  pamphlet  for  the  detraction  of  Woodville, 
and  if  possible  to  upset  Pearson's  Vaccine  Pock  Institu- 
tion, Jenner  left  Berkeley  for  London  on  28th  January, 
1800,  taking  Bath  on  his  way,  where  also  a  Vaccine 
Pock  Institution  was  in  progress. 

Early  in  1800  appeared  A  Continuation  of  Facts  and 
Observations  relative  to  the  Variolcv  Vaccince — a  quarto  of 
40  pages,  Jenner's  third  pamphlet.  Like  its  predecessor, 
a  trumpery  collection  of  gossip,  it  was  designed  to  mani- 
fest his  advantage  over  Woodville,  who  had  inadvertently 
confused  cowpox  with  smallpox  in  his  inoculations  at  the 
Hospital. 

First,  Jenner  expressed  satisfaction  over  the  interest 
of  Europe  in  Cowpox  Inoculation — 

I  have  the  pleasure,  too,  of  seeing  that  the  feeble  efforts  of  a  few 
individuals  to  depreciate  the  new  practice  are  sinking  fast  into 
contempt  beneath  the  immense  mass  of  evidence  which  has  risen 
up  in  support  of  it. 

He  then  went  on  to  describe  the  accumulating  mass 
of  evidence — 

Upwards  of  six  thousand  persons  have  now  been  inoculated  with 
the  virus  of  Cowpox,  and  the  far  greater  part  of  them  have  since 

*  Rees's  Cydopmlia,  vol.  38.  London,  1819.  The  writer  of  the 
article  himself  inoculated  Woodville  with  the  Grease. 


164  VACCINATION. 


been  inoculated  with  that  of  Smallpox,  and  exposed  to  its  infection 
in  every  rational  way  that  could  be  devised,  without  effect. 

"True,"  Pearson  might  have  observed,"  but  who  inocu- 
lated the  vast  majority  of  the  six  thousand  ?  Nor  were 
they  inoculated  with  the  horsegrease  cowpox  you  pre- 
scribed, but  with  the  cowpox  you  condemned." 

The  introductory  reference  to  Woodville  revealed  Jen- 
ner's  disposition  and  tactics — 

It  was  very  improbable  that  the  investigation  of  a  disease  so 
analogous  to  the  Smallpox  should  go  forward  without  engaging  the 
attention  of  the  Physician  of  the  Smallpox  Hospital  in  London. 

Accordingly,  Dr.  Woodville,  who  fills  that  department  with  so 
much  respectability,  took  an  early  opportunity  of  instituting  an 
inquiry  into  the  nature  of  the  Cowpox.  This  inquiry  was  begun  in 
the  early  part  of  1799,  and  in  May,  Dr.  Woodville  published  the 
result,  which  differs  essentially  from  mine  in  a  point  of  much 
importance.  It  appears  that  three-fifths  of  the  patients  inoculated 
were  affected  with  eruptions,  for  the  most  part  so  perfectly  re- 
sembling the  Smallpox,  as  not  to  be  distinguished  from  them.  On 
this  subject  it  is  necessary  that  I  should  make  some  comments. 

Woodville,  whose  experiments  were  as  a  hundred  to 
one  of  his  patronising  critic,  and  informed  with  purpose 
too,  must  have  received  this  languid  commendation  of 
his  country  acquaintance  with  some  surprise,  if  not  with 
fierier  sentiment.  Jenner  as  an  investigator  was  never 
of  much  account.  Of  what  constitutes  scientific  demon- 
stration, he  had  little  perception.  Incapable  and  indolent, 
he  nevertheless  was  ambitious,  and  had  the  craft  to 
appropriate  the  research  of  others,  and  with  assurance  so 
ineffable  that  even  the  plundered  fell  under  the  persuasion 
that  what  he  took  was  somehow  his  own.  For  example, 
the  occurrence  of  smallpox  and  cowpox  simultaneously 
in  Woodville's  practice,  which  he  had  not  foreseen,  nor 
could  any  foresee,  he  first  used  as  a  pretext  for  lofty 
reprehension  toward  Woodville,  and  then  converted  into 
evidence  of  his  own  prescience,  saying — 

In  my  first  publication  I  expressed  an  opinion  that  the  Smallpox 
and  the  Cowpox  were  the  same  disease  under  different  modifications. 
In  this  opinion,  Dr.  Woodville  has  concurred.  The  axiom  of  the 
immortal  Hunter,  that  two  diseased  actions  cannot  take  place  at 
the  same  time  in  one  and  the  same  part,  will  not  be  injured  by  the 
admission  of  this  theory. 


OPERATIONS  IN  LONDON,  1800.  165 

Mark  the  adroit  oblivion  and  the  adroit  attachment. 
It  was  horsegrease  that  he  assumed  to  be  the  origin  of 
smallpox  through  cowpox;  and  the  cowpox  used  by 
Woodville  was  Jenner's  condemned  cowpox,  underived 
from  the  horse ;  yet  the  inconvenient  was  passed  over, 
and  the  convenient  assumed  ! 

Possibly  cowpox  and  smallpox  are  forms  of  the  same 
disease :  possibly  they  are  not :  possibly  all  diseases  are 
forms  of  one  disease  :  possibly  they  are  not :  but  whatever 
the  fact,  Jenner  had  not  an  iota  of  evidence  to  adduce  for 
his  conjecture  that  grease  in  horses,  and  pox  from  that 
grease  in  cows,  was  a  modification  of  smallpox  in  men. 

As  we  review  these  early  days  of  the  New  Inoculation, 
nothing  so  stirs  regret  as  what  appears  to  have  been  the 
wilful  shutting  of  men's  eyes  to  facts — to  notorious  facts. 
It  was  well  known  in  Gloucestershire,  that  whilst  the 
vulgar  supposed  that  cowpox  prevented  smallpox,  it  did 
not  do  so.  Indeed,  it  was  under  stress  of  this  knowledge 
that  Jenner  rejected  cowpox  per  se  for  horsegrease  cow- 
pox.  In  the  Gloucester  Journal  of  9th  May,  1799,  Mr. 
C.  Cooke  wrote — 

I  not  only  very  much  doubt  that  the  Cowpox  is  a  permanent 
preventive  of  Smallpox,  but  I  am  confirmed  in  this  opinion  by 
occurrences  in  my  own  practice,  by  conversing  with  many  medical 
men  on  the  subject,  and  by  Dr.  Beddoes,  who  writes,  "  I  have  a 
case  where  the  Smallpox  was  taken  after  the  Cowpox  had  been 
twice  gone  through.":;: 

Yet  in  presence  of  such  testimonies,  which  were  neither 
examined  nor  exploded,  Jenner  prophesied  in  this  strain — 

Some  there  are  who  suppose  the  security  from  the  Smallpox 
obtained  through  the  Cowpox  will  be  of  a  temporary  nature.  This 
supposition  is  refuted,  not  only  by  analogy  with  respect  to  diseases 
of  a  similar  nature,  but  by  incontrovertible  facts,  which  appear  in 
great  numbers  against  it.  A  person  had  the  Cowpox  53  years 
before  the  Smallpox  was  tried  upon  him,  and  as  he  completely 
resisted  it,  I  conceive  every  reasonable  mind  must  be  satisfied  that 
he  was  secure  from  the  disease  during  the  intervening  time. 


*  Mr.   Cooke's  letter  was   reprinted  in  the  Medical  and  Physical 
Journal,  vol.  i.  p.  322.     London,  1799. 


VACCINATION. 


Such  was  the  evidence  that  he  thought  should  satisfy 
every  reasonable  mind  !  How  did  he  know  that  the  said 
person  had  cowpox  53  years  before,  or  had  the  right  sort 
of  cowpox,  and  in  the  right  way  ?  Inoculation  with  small- 
pox was  continually  unsuccessful  (without  reference  to 
cowpox  as  cause  of  failure)  and  especially  among  elderly 
folk.  When,  however,  there  is  a  disposition  to  believe, 
the  most  indifferent  reasons  serve  for  conviction. 

Cowpox  and  Smallpox,  said  Jenner,  were  modifications 
of  the  same  disease;  and  Smallpox,  whether  contracted  or 
inoculated,  was  a  well-known  excitant  of  scrofula ;  and 
Jenner  was  inclined  to  consider  it  probable  that  "  the 
general  introduction  of  the  Smallpox  into  Europe  had 
been  among  the  most  conducive  means  in  exciting  that 
formidable  foe  to  health."  Then,  it  might  be  said,  Cow- 
pox  as  a  modification  of  Smallpox  must  be  liable  to  the 
like  objection.  "Not  at  all !"  protested  the  smooth-spoken 
adventurer.  "  The  diseases  are  the  same,  but  unlike  in 
the  excitation  of  scrofula  " — 

Having  attentively  watched  the  effects  of  the  Cowpox  in  this 
respect,  I  am  happy  in  being  able  to  declare,  that  the  disease  does 
not  appear  to  have  the  least  tendency  to  produce  this  destructive 
malady. 

Considering  his  limited  experience,  the  asseveration  as 
to  the  non-excitation  of  scrofula  was  sheer  quackery,  and 
of  a  piece  with  the  wilder  assurance  that  follows.  In 
1798  he  had  set  forth  cowpox  as  a  useful  alternative  to 
smallpox  for  inoculation ;  but  in  1800  the  claim  was 
thus  magnified — 

When  scrutiny  has  taken  place,  not  only  among  ourselves,  but 
in  the  first  professional  circles  in  Europe,  and  when  it  has  been 
uniformly  found  in  such  abundant  instances — 

That  the  Human  Frame  when  once  it  has  felt  the  influence  of 
the  genuine  Cowpox  is  never  afterwards,  at  any  period  of  its 
existence,  assailable  by  the  Smallpox, 

May  I  not  with  perfect  confidence  congratulate  my  country  and 
society  at  large  on  their  beholding  in  the  mild  form  of  the  Cowpox, 
an  antidote  that  is  capable  of  extirpating  from  the  earth  a  disease 
which  is  every  hour  devouring  its  victims  ;  a  disease  that  has  ever 
been  considered  as  the  severest  scourge  of  the  human  race  ! 


OPERATIONS  IN  LONDON,  1800.  167 

It  is  unnecessary  to  discuss  these  wild  words — it  is 
sufficient  to  record  them  as  evidence  of  what  it  was 
possible  to  assert  in  the  year  1800 — and  assert,  too, 
whilst  as  yet  the  Cowpox  that  was  to  work  the  miracle 
was  one  thing  in  the  hands  of  Jenner,  and  another  in 
those  of  Pearson  and  Woodville ! 

The  pamphlet  published,  Jenner's  other  business  in 
London  was  to  undermine  the  institution  for  Vaccine  Pock 
Inoculation.  He  went  about  insinuating  and  protesting 
that  its  founders  and  officers  neither  knew  what  was  true 
Variolae  Vaccinse,  nor  how  to  use  it ;  that  not  only  were 
they  ignorant,  but  perverse ;  and  that  the  immeasurable 
blessing  he  had  been  the  means  of  conveying  to  mankind 
would  never  be  rightly  enjoyed  until  there  was  an  Institu- 
tion with  Edward  Jenner  for  its  guide  and  director. 

In  playing  this  game  Jenner  had  facilities  and  advan- 
tages. No  one,  not  Pearson  himself,  contested  his  position 
as  advertiser  of  the  New  Inoculation,  and  to  the  public 
he  was  its  representative.  He  had  attempted  nothing 
and  had  no  mishaps  to  account  for:  these  attached  to 
Woodville  and  other  credulous  and  active  experimenters. 

Moreover  he  had  no  awkward  information  to  contend 
with  in  those  he  addressed — they  listened,  were  informed, 
were  convinced.  Jenner's  conduct  at  this  juncture,  in 
relation  to  Pearson  and  Woodville,  has  been  stigmatised 
as  mean,  thankless,  despicable.  These  be  hard  words. 
His  tactics  were  the  common  tactics  of  men  in  whom 
self-love  is  predominant,  and  we  have  not  the  strength 
for  the  use  of  the  appropriate  epithets  with  the  frequency 
that  experience  requires. 

The  poor  were  the  chief  sufferers  from  smallpox,  and 
under  the  name  of  the  poor  Jenner  advanced  his  project. 
He  drew  up  the  following  memorandum,  which  he  sub- 
mitted to  the  Earl  of  Egremont,  and  circulated  privately — 

PROPOSAL  FOR  A  PUBLIC  INSTITUTION  FOR  VACCINE  INOCULATION. 

Having  now  pursued  the  inquiry  into  the  nature  of  the  Cowpox 
to  so  great  an  extent  as  to  be  able  positively  to  declare  that  those 
who  have  gone  through  this  mild  disease  are  rendered  perfectly 
secure  from  the  contagion  of  the  Smallpox ;  and  being  convinced 


168  VACCINATION. 


from  numberless  instances  that  the  occupations  of  the  mechanic  or 
the  labourer  will  meet  with  no  interruption  during  its  progress,  and 
the  infected  and  uninfected  may  mingle  together  in  the  most 
perfect  safety,  I  conceive  that  an  Institution  for  the  Gratuitous 
Inoculation  of  the  lower  classes  of  society  in  the  Metropolis  would 
be  attended  with  the  most  beneficial  consequences,  and  that  it 
might  be  so  constituted  as  to  diffuse  its  benefits  throughout  every 
part  of  the  British  Empire. 

EDWARD  JENNER. 
London,  16th  March,  1800. 

Then  followed  a  scheme  of  the  Institution,  including 
"  a  Physician  to  be  appointed  to  superintend  the  medical 
department." 

Whether  from  Jenner's  practical  inefficiency,  or  because 
the  time  was  not  ripe,  or  because  those  who  were  more 
actively  interested  in  cowpox  were  satisfied  with  Pearson's 
Institution,  the  project  lay  in  abeyance  till  1808.  He  took 
nothing  ostensibly  by  his  intrigue  save  the  withdrawal 
of  the  names  of  the  Duke  of  York  and  Lord  Egremont 
from  the  patronage  of  the  existing  establishment. 

Meanwhile  Pearson  continued  to  operate  with  unabated 
energy,  and  his  Institution  became  a  recognised  centre  of 
inquiry,  advice,  and  supply.  It  was  designed,  as  he 
wrote,  "  1st,  to  be  useful  to  the  poor ;  but  it  had  other 
objects,  to  wit,  2ndly,  to  ascertain  the  laws  of  the  new 
poison  for  the  extinction  of  smallpox;  and  3rdly,  to  serve 
as  a  public  office  for  the  supply  of  the  world  with  virus 
until  supplies  should  become  unnecessary."  One  of  the 
most  nattering  applications  was  received  by  Pearson  from 
the  French  Consulate  on  5th  April,  1800.  In  a  reply, 
dated  12th  May,  signed  by  the  staff  of  the  Institution, 
it  was  said — 

We  are  not  surprised  that  you  have  not  yet  found  the  disease 
among  the  cows  of  France,  it  being  on  the  whole  a  rare  disease  in 
England ;  nor  are  we  surprised  at  your  want  of  success  with  the 
matter  sent  to  you,  because  from  experience  we  know  that  it  very 
frequently  fails,  unless  used  immediately  from  the  subject. 

Vaccine  matter  may  be  conveyed  in  various  ways  :  we  have  sent 
it  to  you  in  three,  namely,  on  threads,  on  lancets,  and  on  glass. 

If  you  try  the  matter  sent  on  thirty  patients  immediately,  we 
think  you  cannot  fail  to  excite  the  disease  in  some  of  them,  and 
then  you  will  please  to  preserve  the  succession  by  inoculation  as 


OPERATIONS  IN  LONDON,  1800.  169 

we  do  in  England,  having  had  no  fresh  matter  from  the  cow  since 
January  and  February  of  last  year,  1799. 

The  Frenchmen  failed  again  with  this  virus,  but  Dr. 
Woodville  soon  after  went  to  Paris,  and  effected  what 
was  desired. 

Cow-Pock  Dispensaries  were  opened  in  various  towns 
throughout  England,Bath  and  Manchester  perhaps  having 
the  lead  ;  and  an  Address  to  the  Poor  was  drawn  up  as  a 
common  form  to  be  issued  from  such  Dispensaries.  In  a 
copy  of  this  Address,  widely  circulated  in  and  around 
Manchester  in  1800,  we  read — 

The  experience  of  several  years  has  fully  proved  that  inoculation 
for  the  Cowpox  is  a  certain  preservative  against  the  Smallpox ; 
and  is,  besides,  so  mild  and  safe  a  disorder,  when  compared  with 
the  inoculated  Smallpox,  that  it  has  been  generally  introduced 
among  the  better  informed  and  more  wealthy  inhabitants,  both 
of  this  kingdom  and  of  various  parts  of  Europe. 

Inoculation  for  the  Cowpox  has  been  practised  for  several  years 
[less  than  three]  with  constant  success,  in  various  parts  of  the 
Kingdom. 

It  has  never  failed  to  prevent  the  infection  of  the  natural 
Smallpox. 

It  may  be  communicated  with  safety  to  persons  of  every  age  and 
sex,  and  at  all  times  and  seasons  of  the  year,  with  equal  advantage. 

It  does  not  produce  eruptions,  which  scar  and  disfigure  the  face  ; 
and  it  is  seldom,  if  ever,  attended  with  any  other  marks  of  the 
disease  than  what  appear  on  the  arms  from  inoculation. 

So  far  from  proving  hurtful,  delicate  and  sickly  children  are 
often  improved  in  health  by  having  passed  through  this  complaint. 

Scarcely  any  remedies  or  attendance  are  required  for  the  Cowpox, 
nor  is  there  any  necessity  for  a  course  of  physic  before  or  after  the 
inoculation. 

The  prejudices  of  the  poor  against  inoculation  for  the  Smallpox, 
by  which  thousands  of  lives  have  been  annually  saved,*  have  been 
often  lamented  ;  but  if  they  suffer  unjust  prejudices  to  prevent  their 
laying  hold  of  the  advantages  now  offered  to  them  by  the  inoculation 
of  the  Cowpox,  they  will  neglect  the  performance  of  a  duty  they 
owe  to  themselves,  to  their  families,  and  to  society  at  large.  For 
surely  it  is  little  less  than  criminal  to  expose  their  helpless  children 
to  the  attack  of  so  terrible  and  fatal  a  malady  as  Smallpox  when  it 

*  By  and  by  controversy  with  the  Smallpoxers  waxed  hot,  and  then 
the  Cowpoxers  averred  that  thousands  of  lives  were  annually  lost  by 
their  practice. 


170  VACCINATION. 


may  be  readily  avoided  by  the  inoculation  of  so  mild,  simple,  and 
safe  a  disease  as  that  of  the  Cowpox. 

N.B. — All  poor  persons,  whose  affection  for  their  families  leads 
them  to  embrace  this  favourable  opportunity,  may  have  their 
children  inoculated  for  the  Cowpox  at  the  Hospital  and  Dis- 
pensaries every  day  in  the  week  (Sunday  excepted)  throughout  the 
year.  No  time  ought  to  be  lost  by  the  poor  in  freeing  their 
families  from  the  apprehension  of  the  Smallpox,  which  daily 
increases  in  frequency  and  malignity  throughout  this  town. 

This  manifesto  is  an  illustration  of  the  unscrupulous  and 
unwarrantable  assertions  with  which  the  New  Inoculation 
was  introduced  to  the  world.  There  is  no  question  that 
many  who  were  active  in  circulating  these  mendacities 
did  so  honestly,  justified,  as  they  thought,  by  medical 
authority.  What  is  marvellous  is  the  survival  of  the 
primitive  fictions  to  the  present  day.  It  would  seem  that 
when  the  human  mind  acquires  a  certain  set,  something 
like  a  surgical  operation  is  requisite  to  reverse  it. 

We  shall  now  see  how  the  New  Inoculation  obtained 
this  sudden  popularity  —  a  popularity  so  sudden  that 
opposition  had  not  time  to  organise  itself.  There  were 
protests,  and  some  raillery.  In  the  Gentleman's  Magazine 
for  August,  1799,  we  find  a  correspondent  saying — 

There  is  a  plan  to  mitigate  Smallpox  in  the  human  species  by 
passing  it  through  a  Cow.  Now  as  everyone  is  not  in  possession 
of  a  Cow,  I  propose  to  pass  it  through  animals  that  most  people 
possess.  I  mean  Cats  ;  and  I  shall  call  it  the  Catpox.  When  rny 
plan  is  matured,  the  ingenious  shall  hear  further  concerning  it. 

And  Pearson  writing  in  1802,  when  the  success  of 
cowpox  appeared  secure,  observed — 

How  the  new  practice  was  sneered  at  by  some  :  how  it  was  re- 
probated as  a  gross  and  mischievous  imposition :  how  it  was  stig- 
matised with  the  appellation  of  the  Gloucestershire  bubble :  and 
how  the  Inquirers  were  considered  by  many  persons  as  fit 
candidates  for  a  certain  asylum :  to  say  nothing  of  the  villainous 
jests  made  on  the  occasion,  are  recent  in  our  memory.* 

*  Examination  of  Report  of  Committee  of  House  of  Commons.  London, 
1802. 


TRIUMPH  OF  THE  NEW  INOCULATION.  171 

CHAPTER    VIII. 

TRIUMPH   OF   THE  NEW   INOCULATION. 

THE  House  of  Hanover  has  been  reproached  for  in- 
difference to  literature,  science  and  art,  but  an  exception 
might  be  asserted  on  the  score  of  variolous  and  vaccine 
inoculation.  It  was  Caroline,  Princess  of  Wales,  who  in 
1721  promoted  Maitland's  experiments;  and  Jenner  found 
none  so  ready  to  hear  and  believe  as  George  III.  and  his 
family.  His  first  convert  was  the  Duke  of  Clarence,  sub- 
sequently William  IV.  The  Duke's  surgeon  happened 
to  be  Francis  Knight,  who  had  lived  in  Wilts  and  Glouces- 
tershire, and  was  familiar  with  the  country  faith  in  cow- 
pox,  and  received  Jenner's  communication  with  a  ready 
mind.  In  1799  Knight  was  allowed  to  operate  upon  the 
Duke's  children  by  Mrs.  Jordan,  and  the  fact  was  noised 
abroad  and  passed  to  Jenner's  credit.  Nor  was  the 
Duke's  service  limited  to  this  example.  He  made  Jen- 
ner's acquaintance,  listened  to  his  stories,  and  became  his 
active  partizan.  Then  the  Duke  of  York,  commander-in- 
ch ief  of  the  army,  was  convinced,  and  enforced  the  new 
practice  to  the  full  extent  of  his  power.  He,  moreover, 
acted  as  patron  of  the  Vaccine  Pock  Institution  until  he 
was  persuaded  that  Pearson,  its  founder,  was  injurious  to 
Jenner.  On  7th  March,  1800,  Jenner  was  presented  to 
George  III.  at  St.  James's  Palace,  and  delivered  The 
Inquiry  bound  in  crimson  to  his  majesty,  who  was 
pleased  to  accept  the  dedication  of  the  second  edition. 
On  the  27th  he  had  an  interview  with  Queen  Charlotte, 
who  conversed  about  the  new  specific  with  all  the 
curiosity  of  a  grand-motherly  quack.  The  Prince  of 
Wales  followed  suit ;  and  Jenner  found  himself  invested 
with  the  full  effulgence  of  the  royal  favour.  It  was  a 
magical  success ;  for,  consider,  not  two  years  had  elapsed 
since  the  publication  of  The  Inquiry. 

Jenner  naturally  became  very  popular.     He  wrote  to 
Mr.  Shrapnel — "  I  have  not  yet  made  half  my  calls  in 


172  VACCINATION. 


town,  although  I  fag  from  eleven  till  four  ;"  and,  "  Pray 
tell  Tierney  how  rapidly  the  Cowpox  is  marching  over 
the  metropolis,  and  indeed  through  the  whole  island. 
The  death  of  three  children  under  inoculation  with  small- 
pox will  probably  give  that  practice  the  Brutus-stab." 

With  little  ability  to  make  and  maintain  ground, 
Jenner,  like  many  feeble  folk,  had  the  faculty  of  convert- 
ing those  he  called  his  friends  to  his  private  advantage. 
He  did  not  subdue  them  by  will,  but  by  weakness. 
Indeed,  whoever  chooses  to  observe  will  often  have  to 
mark  with  amaze  how  stronger  natures  suffer  their  means 
and  energies  to  be  appropriated  by  inferior  organisms, 
and  used  with  the  thanklessness  of  rightful  possession. 

John  Ring  was  a  remarkable  instance  of  this  sort  of 
possession.  He  was  a  surgeon  in  New  Street,  Hanover 
Square,  London.  In  1799  he  entered  into  correspondence 
with  Jenner,  and  his  interest  in  cowpox  and  its  adver- 
tiser developed  into  an  enthusiasm  without  qualification 
by  weariness  or  fear.  Whatever  Jenner  asserted  he 
swore  to  ;  whatever  charge  was  brought  against  the  New 
Inoculation  he  denied.  He  was  ready  for  all  comers 
with  such  voluble  and  hearty  vigour  that  his  outrages  on 
propriety  were  laughed  at  and  excused  as  "  John  Ring's 
way."  Among  his  earlier  services  was  the  preparation 
of  the  Testimonial  in  favour  of  the  New  Inoculation 
which  he  carried  from  house  to  house  and  obtained  the 
signature  of  nearly  every  London  physician  and  surgeon 
of  distinction.  The  Testimonial  was  published  in  the 
Medical  Review  and  Medical  Journal  for  July,  1800, 
and  was  reprinted  in  the  newspapers.  It  ran  as  follows  — 

Many  unfounded  reports  have  been  circulated,  which  have  a 
tendency  to  prejudice  the  public  against  the  Inoculation  of  the 
Cowpox :  we,  the  undersigned  physicians  and  surgeons,  think  it 
our  duty  to  declare  our  opinion,  that  those  persons  who  have  had 
the  Cowpox  are  perfectly  secure  from  the  future  infection  of  the 
Smallpox,  provided  the  infection  has  not  been  previously  com- 
municated.* 

*  Meaning  thereby,  as  happened  under  Woodville  at  Battle  Bridge 
Hospital  where  Smallpox  and  Cowpox  were  incurred  simultaneously. 


TRIUMPH  OF  THE  NEW  INOCULATION. 

We  also  declare  that  the  inoculated  Cowpox  is  a  much  milder 
and  safer  disease  than  the  inoculated  Smallpox. 

The  first  signatures  comprised  thirty-two  physicians 
and  forty  surgeons,  and  the  example  being  set,  others 
hastened  from  town  and  country  to  record  their  adhesion. 
"  I  feel  proud,"  wrote  Mr.  Witham  in  sending  his  name, 
"  that  my  little  bark  may,  with  others  more  illustrious, 

Attendant  sail, 
Pursue  the  triumph,  and  partake  the  gale." 

The  Testimonial  had  great  effect  on  the  public  mind : 
to  the  majority  it  was  irresistible.  As  Ring  said,  "  It 
confounded  the  enemies  of  the  new  practice" — adding  in 
his  characteristic  vernacular,  "  and  it  secured  the  triumph 
of  reason  over  the  scruples  of  prejudice  and  ignorance, 
and  the  base  manoeuvres  of  sordid  and  self-interested 
men."*  Thus  early  was  it  discovered  that  an  opponent 
of  Vaccination  was  an  ignoramus  or  a  rascal.  Ring's  easy 
arrogance  is  concisely  illustrated  in  this  deliverance — 

It  is  no  want  of  candour  to  affirm  that  those  who  are  hostile  to 
Vaccine  Inoculation,  are  total  strangers  to  it ;  those  who  are 
doubtful,  are  almost  total  strangers  to  it ;  and  I  defy  the  whole 
world  to  produce  one  single  instance  of  a  person  that  has  had  any 
experience  of  the  disease,  who  is  not  a  decided  friend  to  the 
practice.! 

Jenner  recognised  his  thorough-going  supporter,  and 
used  his  loyalty  to  strike  at  Pearson  and  others  who 
failed  to  abide  in  like  subservience.  He  wrote  to  a 
foreign  physician — 

The  discovery  which  I  had  the  happiness  to  announce  to  the 
world  is  much  indebted  to  Mr.  Ring's  ardent  zeal  and  indefatigable 
exertions  for  the  rapid  progress  it  has  made  ;  while  some  of  those 
who  vainly  conceived  themselves  instrumental  in  promoting  its 
adoption  have  in  reality  from  their  ignorance  and  indiscretion, 
rather  retarded  than  accelerated  its  progress. } 

*  A  Treatise  on  the  Cowpox  containing  the  History  of  Vaccine  Inocula- 
tion. By  John  Ring.  Part  i.  p.  297.  London,  1801. 

t  Ib.     Part  ii.  p.  720.     London,  1803. 

J  The  Beauties  of  the  Edinburgh  Review,  alias  the  Stink-Pot  of  Litera- 
ture. By  John  Ring.  London,  1807.  P.  49. 


174  VACCINATION. 


Wonder  is  frequently  expressed  over  the  rapid  con- 
version of  England  and  the  world  to  Vaccination,  but,  as 
I  have  before  remarked,  wonder  is  much  reduced  when 
we  set  the  circumstances  clearly  before  us.  Inoculation 
with  smallpox  to  avert  smallpox  was  the  practice  of  the 
time,  and  it  was  not  a  universal  practice  simply  because  it 
was  troublesome  and  dangerous :  everybody  believed  in 
the  saving  rite ;  and  where  evaded  it  was  as  onerous  and 
perilous  duties  are  always  and  everywhere  evaded  by  the 
indolent  and  cowardly.  Inoculation  with  cowpox  was 
introduced  to  the  public  as  a  substitute  for  inoculation 
with  smallpox,  equally  efficient  or  more  efficient,  and 
neither  troublesome  nor  dangerous.  Thus  easy  and 
seductive  was  the  transition  from  the  one  practice  to  the 
other.  Jenner  had  no  serious  battle  to  fight :  the  con- 
test was  decided  in  the  years  during  which  inoculation 
with  smallpox  struggled  for  prevalence.  The  warfare 
that  subsequently  cost  him  so  much  irritation  was  con- 
ducted by  the  conservatives  of  Inoculation,  as  experience 
revealed  the  inefficiency  and  mischiefs  of  Vaccination. 
Resistance  such  as  is  now  offered  to  Vaccination  on 
physiological  grounds  there  was  none,  so  far  as  I  can  dis- 
cover. It  had  apparently  occurred  to  no  one  that  small- 
pox was  a  consequence  of  the  transgression  of  the  laws 
of  health,  and  was  preventible  by  submission  to  those 
laws.  It  was  imagined  that  the  disease  came  by  the  will 
of  God,  or  the  devil,  or  by  force  of  fate,  and  that  to  dodge 
it  by  medical  craft  was  the  utmost  that  was  practicable. 
Unless  we  bear  in  mind  these  conditions  of  the  public 
intelligence,  we  shall  misapprehend  the  demeanour  of  the 
people  who  so  cordially  welcomed  Jenner's  advertisement. 
It  is  always  a  mistake  to  criticise  the  conduct  of  an 
earlier  generation  by  the  light  of  a  later.  We  turn 
history  to  ill  account  when  we  use  it  to  nourish  our  self- 
complacency  ;  for  the  probability  is  that  had  we  lived 
with  our  forefathers,  we  should  have  done  exactly  as 
they  did. 

Some  will  ask,  How  did  it  ever  come 'to  pass  that  so 
many  doctors  in  1800  signed  Ring's  testimonial  certifying 


TRIUMPH  OF  THE  NEW  INOCULATION.  175 


that  inoculation  with  cowpox  was  a  sure  and  everlasting 
protection  from  smallpox  when  they  had  not,  and  could 
not  have,  any  experience  to  warrant  their  assertion  ? 
True,  but  they  had  an  illusory  experience  by  which  they 
were  beguiled,  namely,  the  Variolous  Test.  Hundreds 
were  inoculated  with  cowpox  and  subsequently  with 
smallpox,  and  were  also  exposed  to  smallpox  contagion, 
and  as  the  disease  did  not  take,  it  was  concluded  it 
could  never  take,  and  that  the  subjects  of  the  operation 
were  fortified  for  ever.  The  fallacy  is  now  manifest,  but 
it  was  by  no  means  manifest  in  1800,  and  all  manner  of 
men  received  and  propagated  the  fable  with  energetic 
sincerity.  It  was  once  admitted  that  a  tub  full  of  water 
did  not  everflow  when  a  fish  was  slipped  into  it,  and 
many  explanations  were  current  of  the  curious  pheno- 
menon until  a  sceptical  spirit  suggested  that  the  experi- 
ment be  tried.  A  like  spirit  might  have  suggested  that 
it  was  expedient  to  wait  and  see  whether  cowpox  was 
indeed  a  perpetual  defence  against  smallpox,  inasmuch 
as  nature  had  an  awkward  habit  of  confuting  prognosti- 
cations apparently  irrefragable. 

The  ease  with  which  it  was  asserted  cowpox  inoculation 
could  be  performed,  coupled  with  its  harmlessness,  not 
to  say  wholesomeness,  and  the  absolute  security  it 
afforded  against  smallpox,  induced  benevolent  busybodies 
to  set  up  as  vaccinators  all  over  the  country.  What  the 
kindly  quack  delights  in  is  something  cheap  and  handy 
with  a  touch  of  mystery  and  the  promise  of  immeasurable 
advantage — conditions  which  the  new  practice  com- 
pletely fulfilled.  The  memoirs  of  the  time,  especially  of 
the  Evangelical  party,  abound  with  instances  in  which 
this  good  soul  and  that  good  soul  had  vaccinated  so  many 
hundreds  or  thousands,  delivering  them  from  the  peril 
of  an  awful  disease.  Thus  in  the  Gentleman  s  Magazine, 
for  December,  1800,  we  read — 

Two  respectable  families  near  Manchester  have  within  these 
few  months  inoculated  upwards  of  800  of  the  neighbouring  poor 
from  two  months  old  to  twenty  years  with  uniform  success. 
Twenty  of  them  were  subjected  to  the  variolous  test,  and  all  were 
found  proof  against  the  disease. 


176  VACCINATION. 


And  John  Ring  relates — 

Dr.  Jenner  lately  met  in  a  large  party  of  fashion  a  lady  of 
Portman  Square,  who,  with  another  lady,  has  inoculated  1300  in 
the  north  of  England.  The  rural  swain,  when  he  receives  the 
blessing  of  Jenner's  discovery  from  such  a  fair  hand,  must  conclude 
that  the  Goddess  of  Health  has  adopted  the  practice.* 

Of  course  medical  practitioners  had  little  favour  for 
this  sort  of  intrusion  into  their  domain,  but  Jenner 
encouraged  and  boasted  himself  in  the  domestic  diffusion 
of  the  discovery.  By  and  by  when  disasters  became 
common  it  was  found  extremely  convenient  to  ascribe 
them  to  these  unskilled  operators ;  and  ultimately  vac- 
cination was  resigned  entirely  to  the  legally  qualified 
practitioner,  whose  failures  are  rarely  inquired  into,  and 
when  proclaimed  are,  as  professional  matter  of  course, 
explicitly  denied. 

Jenner  after  six  months  of  lionising  left  London  on 
23rd  June,  1800,  and  on  his  way  home  passed  through 
Oxford  where  he  was  introduced  to  Dr.  Marlow,  Vice- 
Chancellor  of  the  University,  and  other  dignitaries,  who 
subscribed  the  following  testimonial,  drawn  up  by  Sir 
Christopher  Pegge,  Reader  in  Anatomy— 

We,  whose  names  are  undersigned,  are  fully  satisfied  upon  the 
conviction  of  our  own  observation,  that  the  Cowpox  is  not  only  an 
infinitely  milder  disease  than  the  Smallpox,  but  has  the  advantage 
of  not  being  contagious,  and  is  an  effectual  remedy  against  the 
Smallpox. 

When  a  prophet  in  the  country  turns  out  a  prophet  in 
London  his  country  neighbours  begin  to  believe  in  him ; 
and  thus  it  was  with  Jenner.  His  metropolitan  reputa- 
tion was  reflected  in  Gloucestershire.  Earl  Berkeley 
wrote  to  the  Duke  of  Beaufort — 

Every  father  of  a  family  owes  the  greatest  obligation  to  Dr. 
Jenner  for  preventing  the  dreadful  effects  of  the  smallpox. 

And  the  sense  of  this  obligation  took  shape  in  a 
service  of  plate  presented  in  1801  and  bearing  this 
inscription — 

*  Treatise  on  the  Cowpox,  p.  520.     London,  1801. 


A  DISHONOURABLE  TRANSFORMATION.  177 

PRESENTED  BY 

THE  NOBILITY  AND  GENTRY  OF 
THE   COUNTY   OF   GLOUCESTERSHIRE 

To  THEIE  COUNTRYMAN 
EDWARD    JENNER,    M.  D.,    F.  R.  S. 

As  A  TESTIMONY  OF  THE  HIGH  SENSE  THEY  ENTERTAIN  OP  THOSE 

EMINENT  ABILITIES  WHICH  DISCOVERED  AND   THAT 

DISINTERESTED    PHILANTHROPY   WHICH 

PROMULGATED 
THE    VACCINE    INOCULATION. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

A  DISHONOURABLE  TRANSFORMATION. 

HONOUR  was  abundant,  but  honour  is  windy  fare,  and 
Jenner  had  an  eye  for  something  more  substantial. 
Among  his  papers  we  read — 

While  the  vaccine  discovery  was  progressive,  the  joy  I  felt  at  the 
prospect  before  me  of  being  the  instrument  destined  to  take  away 
from  the  world  one  of  its  greatest  calamities,  blended  with  the  fond 
hope  of  enjoying  independence  and  domestic  peace  and  happiness, 
was  often  so  excessive  that,  in  pursuing  my  favourite  subject  among 
the  meadows,  I  have  sometimes  found  myself  in  a  kind  of  reverie* 
It  is  pleasant  to  me  to  recollect  that  these  reflections  always  ended 
in  devout  acknowledgments  to  that  Being  from  whom  this  and  all 
other  mercies  flow.* 

But  how  was  the  fond  hope  of  enjoying  independence 
to  be  realised?  The  question  was  discussed  by  Jenner 
and  his  friends,  and  it  was  finally  decided  to  apply  to 
the  House  of  Commons  for  a  reward.  But  in  order  to 
go  to  Parliament  it  was  necessary  to  have  a  good  case, 
and  Jenner's  case  was  open  to  various  objections.  The 
Inquiry,  published  in  1798,  was  by  no  means  a  manual 

*  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  i.,  p.  140. 

12 


178  VACCINATION. 


of  practice.  Its  prescription  was  Horsegrease  Cowpox ; 
but  such  Cowpox  was  neither  producible  nor  accounted 
tolerable.  Cowpox  that  did  not  originate  in  Horsegrease, 
Jenner  had  adjudged  spurious;  and  yet  such  spurious 
Cowpox  had  been  adopted  by  Pearson  and  Woodville, 
and  under  their  influence  had  obtained  extraordinary 
popularity.  It  was  therefore  by  no  means  improbable 
that  any  claim  for  cash  wherewith  to  enjoy  independence 
might  be  seriously  contested.  In  this  strait,  what  was 
to  be  done  ?  The  question  was  a  grave  one,  and  called 
for  a  heroic  solution.  Resolved  therefore,  that  Horse- 
grease  Cowpox  be  dropped,  and  with  it  the  use  of 
escharotics  for  the  subjugation  of  the  pustules  produced 
thereby.  Absolute  silence  should  thenceforth  be  his  rule 
as  to  Horsegrease.  So  much  for  the  negative  position  : 
the  positive  was  more  difficult.  To  claim  Cowpox  as  his 
own,  with  the  modes  of  its  exhibition  devised  by  Pearson, 
was  an  evolution  full  of  hazard,  but  unless  prepared  to 
surrender  "  the  fond  hope  of  enjoying  independence,"  it 
must  be  effected.  He  had  advantages.  His  name  was 
associated  with  the  new  practice:  even  Pearson  had  done 
him  homage:  neither  the  medical  profession  nor  the 
public  were  likely  to  study  the  Inquiry  critically,  or  to 
trouble  their  heads  over  obscure  details  :  Cowpox  was  to 
them  Cowpox :  he  had  the  world's  ear ;  and  opposition 
would  be  set  down  as  the  ordinary  behaviour  of  envy 
toward  success.  Anyhow  the  transformation  must  be 
attempted :  otherwise,  farewell  to  dreams  of  financial 
independence. 

To  initiate  this  transformation,  Jenner  came  to  London, 
and  in  May,  1801,  published  a  quarto  pamphlet  of  twelve 
pages,  entitled  The  Origin  of  the  Vaccine  Inoculation. 

First  it  was  necessary  to  represent  that  his  investiga- 
tions had  extended  over  many  years — a  fact  of  which 
there  was  no  sign  in  the  Inquiry,  the  evidence  indeed 
being  distinctly  otherwise;  and  thus  he  shaped  his 
statement — 

My  inquiry  into  the  nature  of  the  Cowpox  commenced  upwards 
of  twenty-five  years  ago.  My  attention  to  this  singular  disease 


A  DISHONOURABLE  TRANSFORMATION.  179 

was  first  excited  by  observing  that  among  those  whom  in  the 
country  I  was  frequently  called  upon  to  inoculate,  many  resisted 
every  effort  to  give  them  the  Smallpox.  These  patients  I  found 
had  undergone  a  disease  they  called  the  Cowpox,  contracted  by 
milking  Cows  affected  with  a  peculiar  eruption  on  their  teats.  On 
inquiry,  it  appeared  it  had  been  known  among  the  dairies  from 
time  immemorial,  and  that  a  vague  opinion  prevailed  that  it  was 
a  preventive  of  the  Smallpox.  This  opinion  I  found  was  compara- 
tively new  among  them ;  for  all  the  older  farmers  declared  they 
had  no  such  idea  in  their  early  days — a  circumstance  that  seemed 
easily  to  be  accounted  for,  from  my  knowing  that  the  common 
people  were  very  rarely  inoculated  for  the  Smallpox  till  that  prac- 
tice was  rendered  general  by  the  improved  method  introduced  by 
the  Suttons  :  so  that  the  working  people  in  the  dairies  were  seldom 
put  to  the  test  of  the  preventive  powers  of  the  Cowpox. 

Jenner's  design  in  the  foregoing  statement  was  mani- 
fest. It  was  to  minimise  the  faith  of  the  country  folk, 
and  to  represent  that  by  his  own  perspicacity  he  had 
discovered  the  virtue  of  Cowpox  through  his  failures  to 
inoculate  with  Smallpox.  The  inquiries  of  Pearson  and 
others,  however,  showed  conclusively  that  in  many  part? 
of  the  south  of  England,  in  Ireland,  and  on  the  Continent 
it  was  believed  that  to  have  suffered  from  Cowpox  was 
to  be  secure  from  Smallpox ;  and  the  belief  was  enter- 
tained altogether  independently  of  failures  to  inoculate 
with  Smallpox ;  just  as  a  similar  belief  prevailed  among 
farriers  as  to  the  prophylaxy  of  Horsegrease.  The  faith 
in  Cowpox  was  neither  vague,  nor  new,  nor  confined  to 
Jenner's  neighbourhood;  and  his  assertion  to  the  contrary 
showed  with  what  hardihood  he  had  undertaken  to  con- 
struct a  case  in  his  own  favour. 

In  opposition  to  the  rural  faith,  medical  men  main- 
tained that  it  was  possible  to  have  Smallpox  after  Cow- 
pox  ;  and  surgeons  averred  that  they  had  successfully 
inoculated  many  who  had  suffered  Cowpox.  Indeed  it 
was  indubitable  professional  testimony  to  this  effect  that 
compelled  Jenner  to  forsake  his  first  fancy  for  Cowpox, 
and  to  report  the  true  specific  as  Horsegrease  Cowpox. 
Having,  however,  to  sacrifice  that  discovery,  and  revert 
to  the  Cowpox  he  had  discredited,  a  fresh  manoeuvre  was 
requisite ;  and  thus  was  it  performed — 


180  VACCINATION. 


In  the  course  of  the  investigation  I  found  that  some  of  those  who 
seemed  to  have  undergone  the  Cowpox,  nevertheless,  on  inoculation 
with  the  Smallpox,  felt  its  influence  just  the  same  as  if  no  disease 
had  been  communicated  to  them  by  the  Cow.  This  occurrence 
led  me  to  inquire  among  the  medical  practitioners  in  the  country 
around  me,  who  all  agreed  in  this  sentiment,  that  the  Cowpox  was 
not  to  be  relied  upon  as  a  certain  preventive  of  the  Smallpox. 
This  for  a  while  damped,  but  did  not  extinguish  my  ardour ;  for  as 
I  proceeded  I  had  the  satisfaction  to  learn  that  the  Cow  was  sub- 
ject to  some  varieties  of  spontaneous  eruptions  upon  her  teats,  that 
were  all  capable  of  communicating  sores  to  the  hands  of  the  milkers, 
and  that  whatever  sore  was  derived  from  the  animal  was  called  in 
the  dairy  the  Cowpox.  Thus  I  surmounted  a  great  obstacle,  and, 
in  consequence,  was  led  to  form  a  distinction  between  these  diseases, 
one  of  which  only  I  have  denominated  the  true,  the  others  the 
spurious  Cowpox,  as  they  possess  no  specific  power  over  the  con- 
stitution. . 

Here  we  have  the  trick  before  us  at  the  very  point  of 
transformation.  He  consulted  with  medical  practitioners, 
"  who  all  agreed  that  Cowpox  was  not  to  be  relied  upon 
as  a  certain  preventive  of  Smallpox."  True.  What  did 
he  do  next  ?  He  discovered  that  what  Cowpox  did  not 
prevent,  the  variety  derived  from  Horsegrease  did.  Such 
was  the  original  revelation  of  1798.  In  1801  we  have  a 
different  story,  and  his  quest  a  different  issue.  Not  a 
word  about  the  discovery  of  the  sure  preventive  in 
Horsegrease  Cowpox — not  one  word !  Although  his 
ardour  was  damped  by  the  medical  evidence  against 
Cowpox,  he  yet  prosecuted  his  inquiry ;  and  to  his  satis- 
faction ascertained  that  what  the  milkers  called  Cowpox 
was  not  always  Cowpox,  but  that  any  sores  whatever 
derived  from  the  Cow  were  so  designated.  He  therefore 
was  led  to  form  a  distinction  between  the  diseases,  and 
to  denominate  one  as  true  and  the  others  as  spurious 
Cowpox. 

Thus  the  Horse,  the  obnoxious  Horse,  was  got  rid  of, 
and  the  Cow  represented  as  of  herself  yielding  pox, 
which  pox  was  the  Cowpox  that  Pearson  and  Woodville 
(in  contempt  of  Jenner's  1798  revelation)  had  brought 
into  fashion ;  and  which  it  had  become  all  essential  for 
Jenner  to  claim  as  his  own  in  order  to  realise  his  "  fond 
hope  of  enjoying  independence." 


A  DISHONOURABLE  TRANSFORMATION.  181 


In  this  connection  the  question  occurs,  Why  should 
"some  varieties  of  spontaneous  eruptions"  have  been 
designated  spurious  Cowpox  ?  Such  eruptions  were  not 
Cowpox  in  any  sense.  Why  then  spurious  ?  That  Cows 
communicated  a  variety  of  sores  to  their  milkers,  de- 
scribed by  them  in  common  as  Cowpox,  was  an  assertion 
for  which  Jenner  never  adduced  any  evidence;  which, 
too,  (as  we  shall  see)  at  a  later  date  he  disowned  as  a 
misapprehension.  Nevertheless  spurious  Cowpox  got 
the  New  Inoculation  over  many  difficulties.  When 
Smallpox,  or  any  notable  mischief,  followed  Cowpox  it 
was  said,  "  Ah !  the  Cowpox  must  have  been  spurious ; 
for  Smallpox,  or  any  harm,  is  impossible  after  true  Cow- 
pox."  People  did  not  stay  to  inquire  whether  spurious 
Cowpox  (that  was  to  say,  matter  "from  a  variety  of 
sores  on  the  Cow,"  according  to  Jenner's  second  version) 
could  be  propagated  from  arm-to-arm,  even  if  taken 
from  the  Cow  by  mistake.  The  illusory  Yariolous  Test 
and  the  Spurious  Cowpox  Dodge  worked  marvellously 
for  the  public  deception. 

Another  point  Jenner  tried  to  score  at  the  cost  of 
Pearson  and  Woodville.  When  they  began  to  inoculate 
they  found  they  had  to  ascertain  at  what  period  the 
virus  should  be  taken  from  the  Cow,  and  from  the  arms 
of  the  inoculated.  Jenner  afforded  them  no  guidance. 
Writing  to  John  Ring,  ]st  July,  1801,  he  confessed — 

In  the  early  part  of  my  inoculations  I  had  not  learned  to  dis- 
criminate between  the  efficacy  of  the  virus  taken  at  an  early  and 
at  a  late  period  of  the  pustule.* 

Where  Jenner  had  not  learned  to  discriminate,  the  line 
became  clear  in  the  course  of  general  practice ;  and  Pear- 
son was  especially  explicit  as  to  the  right  time  for  taking 
virus ;  but  to  make  good  his  claim  to  national  considera- 
tion, Jenner  fancied  it  necessary  to  exhibit  himself  as 
complete  master  of  the  art  of  Cowpox  Inoculation,  owing 
nothing  to  others ;  and  he  therefore  proceeded  to  appro- 
priate the  fruit  of  the  common  medical  experience, 

*  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  i.,  p.  448. 


182  VACCINATION. 


assigning  it  to  a  season  when  he  alone  was  in  the  field. 
Referring  to  his  separation  of  true  from  spurious  Cowpox, 
he  thus  prosecuted  his  raid — 

This  impediment  to  my  progress  was  not  long  removed  before 
another,  of  far  greater  magnitude  in  appearance,  started  up.  There 
were  not  wanting  instances  to  prove  that  when  the  true  Cowpox 
broke  out  among  the  cattle  at  a  dairy,  the  person  who  had  milked 
an  infected  animal,  and  had  thereby  gone  through  the  disease  in 
common  with  others,  was  liable  to  receive  the  Smallpox  afterwards. 
This,  like  the  former  obstacle,  gave  a  painful  check  to  my  fond  and 
aspiring  hopes ;  but  reflecting  that  the  operations  of  Nature  are 
generally  uniform,  and  that  it  was  not  probable  the  human  consti- 
tution (having  undergone  the  Cowpox)  should  in  some  instances 
be  perfectly  shielded  from  the  Smallpox,  and  in  many  others  re- 
main unprotected,  I  resumed  my  labours  with  redoubled  ardour. 
The  result  was  fortunate ;  for  I  now  discovered  that  the  virus  of 
Cowpox  was  liable  to  undergo  progressive  changes  from  the  same 
cause  precisely  as  that  of  Smallpox,  and  that  when  it  was  applied 
to  the  human  skin  in  its  degenerated  state,  it  would  produce  the 
ulcerated  effects  in  as  great  a  degree  as  when  it  was  not  decom- 
posed, and  sometimes  far  greater ;  but  having  lost  its  specific  pro- 
perties, it  was  incapable  of  producing  that  change  upon  the  human 
frame  which  is  requisite  to  render  it  insusceptible  of  the  variolous 
contagion  :  so  that  it  became  evident  a  person  might  milk  a  Cow 
one  day,  and  having  caught  the  disease,  be  for  ever  secure  ;  while 
another  person,  milking  the  same  Cow  the  next  day,  might  feel 
the  influence  of  the  virus  in  such  a  way  as  to  produce  a  sore,  or 
sores,  and,  in  consequence  of  this,  might  experience  an  indisposi- 
tion to  a  considerable  extent ;  yet,  as  has  been  observed,  the  specific 
quality  being  lost,  the  constitution  would  receive  no  peculiar  im- 
pression. .  . 

This  observation  will  fully  explain  the  source  of  those  errors 
which  have  been  committed  by  many  inoculators  of  the  Cowpox. 
Conceiving  the  whole  process  to  be  extremely  simple,  as  not  to 
admit  of  a  mistake,  they  have  been  heedless  about  the  state  of  the 
Vaccine  Virus ;  and  finding  it  limpid,  as  part  of  it  will  be,  even  in 
an  advanced  state  of  the  pustule,  they  have  felt  an  improper  con- 
fidence, and  sometimes  mistaken  a  spurious  pustule  for  that  which 
possesses  the  perfect  character. 

No  one  apparently  thought  it  worth  while  to  expose 
the  fictitious  character  of  these  statements,  invented  by 
Jenner  to  justify  his  pretensions  and  to  baffle  objections. 
Any  careful  reader  of  the  Inquiry  of  1798,  and  the 
Origin  of  Vaccine  Inoculation  of  1801,  cannot  fail  to 
perceive  the  radical  inconsistency  of  the  earlier  and  later 


JENNER  BEFORE  PARLIAMENT,  1802.  183 

narratives,  and  how  a  few  hasty  experiments  enveloped 
in  un verifiable  conjecture  and  gossip,  came  to  be  magni- 
fied into  years  of  arduous  research. 

He  wound  up  his  statement  with  this  flourish  and 
prediction — 

The  distrust  and  scepticism  which  naturally  arose  in  the  minds 
of  medical  men,  on  my  first  announcing  so  unexpected  a  discovery, 
has  now  nearly  disappeared.  Many  hundreds  of  them  from  actual 
experience,  have  given  their  attestations  that  the  inoculated  Cow- 
pox  proves  a  perfect  security  against  the  Smallpox;  and  I  shall 
probably  be  within  compass  if  I  say  thousands  are  ready  to  follow 
their  example  ;  for  the  scope  that  this  Inoculation  has  now  taken 
is  immense.  An  hundred  thousand  persons,  upon  the  smallest 
computation,  have  been  inoculated  in  these  realms.  [May,  1801.] 
The  numbers  who  have  partaken  of  its  benefits  throughout  Europe 
and  other  parts  of  the  globe  are  incalculable  ;  and  it  now  becomes 
too  manifest  to  admit  of  controversy,  that  the  annihilation  of  the 
Smallpox,  the  most  dreadful  scourge  of  the  human  species,  must 
be  the  final  result  of  this  practice. 

For  the  end  designed — to  establish  and  exalt  a  claim 
with  the  purpose  of  exacting  corresponding  recompense, 
the  Origin  of  the  Vaccine  Inoculation  was  an  adroitly 
drawn  document :  its  veracity  is  a  different  matter.  A 
just  man,  not  to  say  a  generous,  would  have  had  some 
praise  for  Pearson,  Woodville,  and  others  to  whom  the 
extension  of  the  New  Inoculation  was  due ;  but  Jenner 
was  essentially  a  mean  spirit ;  and  for  him  to  have  stated 
his  case  truly  would  have  been  to  jeopardise  "  the  fond 
hope  of  enjoying  independence." 


CHAPTER   X. 

JENNER  BEFORE   PARLIAMENT,   1802. 

JENNER  was  timid  and  indolent,  and,  though  eager  for 
reward,  required  much  prompting  to  use  the  means  to 
the  end  on  which  his  heart  was  set.  He  wrote  to  Lord 
Sherborne  to  speak  for  him  to  Prime  Minister  Addington; 
but  Sherborne  replied,  23rd  April,  1801,  that  he  did  not 


184  VACCINATION. 

know  Addington  even  by  sight.     He  would  however  try 
to  see  Mr.  Pitt,  adding  for  encouragement  and  direction — 

If  patriot  Grattan  gets  .£50,000  for  his  patriotism,  the  true  patriot 
Jenner  deserves  more :  I  am  sure  not  less ;  and  less  would  be 
perfectly  shabby  to  think  of.  I  perfectly  recollect  Grattan's  busi- 
ness. It  was  settled  among  his  friends  to  propose  £100,000  for 
him,  determining  to  ask  enough ;  and  fearing  that  sum  would  not 
be  granted,  one  of  his  particular  friends  was  to  get  up  afterwards 
and  propose  £50,000,  which  was  immediately  granted,  and  he  took 
£47,500  for  prompt  payment. 

Action  had  to  be  taken,  and  on  9th  December,  1801, 
Jenner  went  to  London  to  prepare  a  petition  to  the 
House  of  Commons  and  to  canvass  for  support.  Even  at 
the  last  moment,  Wilberforce  had  to  warn  him,  24th 
February,  1802,  that  no  time  was  to  be  lost,  or  he  would 
lose  his  chance  for  the  year.  After  prolonged  consulta- 
tion with  those  accustomed  to  such  business,  the  petition 
was  got  ready,  and  on  17th  March,  1802,  it  was  presented 
to  the  House  of  Commons. 

The  humble  Petition  of  EDWARD  JENNER,  Doctor  of  Physic, 
SHEWETH, 

That  your  Petitioner  having  discovered  that  a  disease  which 
occasionally  exists  in  a  particular  form  among  cattle,  known  by  the 
name  of  the  Cowpox,  admits  of  being  inoculated  on  the  human 
frame  with  the  most  perfect  ease  and  safety,  and  is  attended  with 
the  singularly  beneficial  effect  of  rendering  through  life  the  persons 
so  inoculated  perfectly  secure  from  the  infection  of  the  Smallpox. 

That  your  Petitioner  after  a  most  attentive  and  laborious  investi- 
gation of  the  subject,  setting  aside  considerations  of  private  and 
personal  advantage,  and  anxious  to  promote  the  safety  and  welfare 
of  his  Countrymen  and  of  Mankind  in  general,  did  not  wish  to 
conceal  the  Discovery  he  so  made  of  the  mode  of  conducting  this 
new  species  of  Inoculation,  but  immediately  disclosed  the  whole  to 
the  public  ;  and  by  communication  with  medical  men  in  all  parts  of 
this  Kingdom,  and  in  Foreign  Countries,  sedulously  endeavoured 
to  spread  the  knowledge  of  his  discovery  and  the  benefit  of  his 
labours  as  widely  as  possible. 

That  in  this  latter  respect  the  views  and  wishes  of  your  Petitioner 
have  been  completely  fulfilled  ;  for  to  his  high  gratification  he  has 
to  say  that  this  Inoculation  is  in  practice  throughout  a  great  pro- 
portion of  the  civilised  world,  and  has  in  particular  been  productive 
of  great  advantage  to  these  Kingdoms,  in  consequence  of  its  being 
introduced,  under  authority,  into  the  Army  and  Navy. 

That  the  said  Inoculation  hath  already  checked  the  progress  of 


JENNER  BEFORE  PARLIAMENT,  1802.  185 

the  Smallpox,  and  from  its  nature  must  finally  annihilate  that 
dreadful  disorder. 

That  the  series  of  experiments  by  which  this  discovery  was 
developed  and  completed  have  not  only  occupied  a  considerable 
portion  of  your  Petitioner's  life,  and  have  not  merely  been  a  cause 
of  great  expense  and  anxiety  to  him,  but  have  so  interrupted  him 
in  the  ordinary  exercise  of  his  profession  as  materially  to  abridge 
its  pecuniary  advantages  without  their  being  counter  balanced  by 
those  derived  from  the  new  practice. 

Your  Petitioner,  therefore,  with  the  full  persuasion  that  he  shall 
meet  with  that  attention  and  indulgence  of  which  this  Hon- 
ourable House  may  deem  him  worthy,  humbly  prays  this 
Honourable  House  to  take  the  premises  into  consideration, 
and  to  grant  him  such  remuneration  as  to  their  wisdom  shall 
seem  meet. 

Patriot  Grattan  asked  for  £100,000,  was  awarded 
£50,000,  and  took  £47,500:  "true  patriot  Jenner  deserves 
more,"  said  Lord  Sherborne ;  but  Jenner  had  not  courage 
for  the  demand.  What,  however,  was  undefined  in  cash 
was  made  up  for  in  pretension. 

As  we  read  Jenner's  petition  we  note  (1)  the  Discovery; 
(2)  its  Disclosure  and  Diffusion;  (3)  the  Expense  thereby 
incurred ;  and  (4)  the  Prophecies ;  and  under  these  heads 
it  is  to  be  observed — 

1. — It  was  no  discovery  of  Jenner's  that  cowpox  was 
inoculable  and  preventive  of  smallpox.  That  was  a  rural 
superstition.  Nor,  be  it  again  repeated,  did  he  ever 
become  responsible  for  that  rural  superstition.  Recognis- 
ing its  futility,  he  deliberately  set  it  aside,  and  recom- 
mended a  disease  of  the  horse,  transmitted  through  the 
cow,  for  inoculation.  It  was  Pearson,  who  disliking 
Jenner's  prescription,  brought  cowpox  into  vogue;  where- 
on Jenner,  fearing  that  he  might  be  cut  out  of  the  enter- 
prise, dropped  his  specific,  adopted  the  cowpox  he  had 
rejected,  and  claimed  Pearson's  work  as  the  development 
of  his  own. 

2. — That  he  disclosed  his  discovery  was  true,  but  it 
was  not  the  discovery  set  forth  in  the  petition.  Moreover 
the  merit  of  disclosure  in  such  a  case  is  measured  by  the 
advantage  of  concealment ;  and  what  could  Jenner  have 
taken  by  concealment  ?  The  conditions  of  successful 


186  VACCINATION. 


quackery  were   not   present   in   the  secret   practice  of 
inoculation  with  horsegrease  cowpox. 

3. — That  the  discovery  occupied  a  considerable  portion 
of  Jenner's  life,  and  was  attended  with  great  expense  and 
loss  of  practice,  is  answered  by  reference  to  his  Inquiry. 
With  what  loss  of  time,  loss  of  money,  and  loss  of  practice 
could  the  series  of  cases  therein  set  forth  have  been 
attended  ?  And  after  1798,  he  confessed  he  was  able  to 
achieve  little  further. 

4. — As  for  the  prophecies  about  the  absolute  security 
afforded  by  cowpox  with  the  final  extermination  of  small- 
pox, we  may  estimate  the  worth  of  such  vapouring  by 
the  asserted  check  at  that  time,  1801,  administered  to 
the  disease,  when  as  yet  an  insignificant  fraction  of  the 
population  had  been  subjected  to  the  New  Inoculation, 
and  a  fraction,  too,  least  likely  to  suffer  from  smallpox. 

Petitions  are  petitions,  and  not  designed  for  over-much 
scrutiny.  In  them  truth  is  rarely  to  be  looked  for  other- 
wise than  warped  to  personal  ends.  The  policy  of  a 
petition  is  to  claim  in  excess  with  a  view  to  obtain  a 
larger  concession.  Jenner's  petition  was  a  more  than 
usually  flagrant  instance  of  this  policy,  with  the  dis- 
advantage that  much  of  its  untruth  passed  into  currency 
as  matter  of  fact. 

The  Prime  Minister,  Mr.  ADDINGTON  (afterwards  Vis- 
count Sidmouth),  informed  the  House  that  he  had  taken 
the  King's  pleasure  on  the  contents  of  the  petition,  and 
that  his  Majesty  recommended  it  strongly  to  the  con- 
sideration of  Parliament.  It  was  referred  to  a  committee, 
of  which  Admiral  Berkeley,  a  zealous  believer  in  Jenner, 
was  appointed  chairman.  The  points  to  which  the  com- 
mittee chiefly  directed  their  inquiries  were — 

I. — The  utility  of  the  discovery  itself. 

II. — The  right  of  the  petitioner  to  the  discovery. 

III. — The  sacrifices  of  the  petitioner  in  making  the 
discovery. 

As  an  investigation  the  work  of  the  Committee  was 
illusory.  The  points  were  decided  in  the  petitioner's 
favour  from  the  outset.  There  was  no  opposition.  Dr. 


JENNER  BEFORE  PARLIAMENT,  1802.  187 

Moseley,  Mr.  Birch,  and  Dr.  Rowley,  who  became  active 
opponents  of  the  New  Inoculation,  were  summoned,  but 
the  matter  was  new  to  them ;  they  had  not  had  time  to 
collect  evidence  and  formulate  conclusions :  a  rite  that 
was  to  protect  for  a  lifetime  and  to  annihilate  smallpox, 
announced  in  1798,  was  to  be  adjudicated  upon  in  1802  1 
On  the  other  hand,  Jenner's  friends  were  influential  and 
active,  and  used  the  opportunity  to  parade  their  whole 
strength  in  his  favour.  The  medical  testimony  especially 
was  unreserved  and  enthusiastic. 

Dr.  JAMES  SIMS,  president  of  the  London  Medical 
Society,  laid  before  the  Committee  a  unanimous  resolu- 
tion of  the  Society  in  Jenner's  favour.  He  said  he  was 
at  first  adverse  to  Vaccine  Inoculation,  but  his  confidence 
in  it  was  increasing  every  hour.  It  introduced  no  other 
disease  to  the  human  frame,  whilst  it  made  an  end  of  the 
possibility  of  smallpox,  a  disease  that  proved  fatal  to  one 
in  six  of  those  it  attacked.  He  had  never  heard  of  Cow- 
pox  before  the  publication  of  The  Inquiry,  and  regarded 
the  discovery  therein  communicated  as  the  most  useful 
ever  made  in  medicine.  If  Jenner  had  kept  and  traded 
on  his  secret,  he  might  have  become  the  richest  man  in 
the  kingdom. 

Sir  GILBERT  BLANE  related  how  the  New  Inoculation 
had  been  introduced  to  the  Navy.  He  had  had  the  men 
on  board  the  Kent,  man-of-war,  inoculated  with  cowpox, 
and  then  with  smallpox,  and  not  one  took  the  latter 
disease.  Of  every  thousand  deaths  in  the  country,  small- 
pox was  accountable  for  ninety-five.  Taking  London  as 
the  standard,  45,000  must  perish  annually  from  smallpox 
in  the  United  Kingdom.  As  soon  as  the  preventive  dis- 
covered by  Jenner  became  universal  that  large  mortality 
would  cease. 

Dr.  LETTSOM,  a  popular  physician,  a  member  of  the 
Society  of  Friends,  and  an  enthusiastic  supporter  of 
Jenner,  said  he  had  paid  much  attention  to  smallpox 
statistics.  Taking  London  and  the  out-parishes  as  con- 
taining nearly  1,000,000  inhabitants,  he  calculated  that 
eight  a  day,  or  3000  annually  died  of  smallpox.  Allow- 


->  /  •-"  /  /  (0  7 

188  VACCINATION. 

ing  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  to  have  a  population  of 
12,000,000,  that  would  give  a  mortality  of  not  less  than 
36,000  per  annum  from  smallpox.  He  had  reason  to 
conclude  that  about  60,000  persons  had  undergone  the 
New  Inoculation  up  to  date.  He  did  not  think  that  the 
genuine  cowpox  when  inoculated  could  ever  prove  fatal. 
Had  Jenner  kept  his  remedy  secret  he  might  have  derived 
immense  pecuniary  profits  from  it,  as  did  the  Suttons  by 
their  improved  practice  of  variolous  inoculation. 

Asked  whether  he  had  known  any  inoculated  with 
smallpox  subsequently  contract  smallpox,  he  replied  that 
he  had  two  relatives  inoculated  who  afterwards  had 
smallpox,  and  one  of  them  died.  He  had  recently  attended 
two  families,  in  each  of  which  a  child  inoculated  was 
laid  up  a  year  after  the  operation  with  smallpox. 

Dr.  WOODVILLE,  forgiving  Jenner's  evil  treatment, 
came,  like  a  good  Friend,  to  bear  witness  to  the  new 
practice.  He  had  learnt  to  prefer  vaccine  to  variolous 
inoculation  at  the  Hospital.  He  had,  up  to  January, 
1802,  operated  with  cowpox  on  7,500  patients.  About 
half  of  them  had  been  subjected  to  the  Variolous  Test 
with  satisfactory  results. 

Dr.  BRADLEY,  physician  to  the  Westminster  Hospital, 
said  he  looked  on  Jenner  as  the  author  of  Vaccine 
Inoculation,  and  believed  no  medical  man  doubted  it. 
As  accidental  inoculation  with  cowpox  was  proved  to 
keep  off  smallpox  for  life,  it  was  matter  of  course  that 
intentional  inoculation  would  do  so  also.  Not  less  than 
2,000,000  of  persons  had  received  Vaccine  Inoculation, 
and  he  had  never  known  an  instance  of  any  one  dying 
of  it.  One  in  300  died  of  smallpox  inoculation  in 
England,  and  not  less  than  one  in  150  throughout  the 
rest  of  Europe,  Asia,  Africa  and  America.  Had  Jenner 
settled  in  London  he  might  have  made  £10,000  per 
annum  for  the  first  five  years,  and  double  that  sum 
afterwards. 

Sir  WALTER  FARQUHAR,  physician  to  the  Prince  of 
Wales,  had  told  Jenner  that  if  he  had  come  to  London 
and  kept  his  secret,  he  would  have  ensured  him  £10,000 


JENNER  BEFORE  PARLIAMENT,  1802.  189 

a  year.  He  had  however  divulged  his  secret  and  lost  all 
chance  of  emolument.  His  remedy  was  a  permanent 
security  against  smallpox,  and  had  never  proved  fatal ; 
whilst  variolous  inoculation,  performed  in  the  best 
manner,  cost  one  life  in  three  hundred. 

Mr.  CLINE,  surgeon  to  St.  Thomas's  Hospital,  corro- 
borated the  opinion  that  Jenner  could  have  earned 
£10,000  a  year  in  London  by  means  of  his  secret.  As 
smallpox  was  the  most  destructive  of  all  diseases,  its 
suppression  was  the  greatest  discovery  ever  made  in  the 
practice  of  physic. 

Mr.  JOHN  GRIFFITHS,  surgeon  to  the  Queen's  Household 
and  St.  George's  Hospital,  had  inoculated  upwards  of  1500 
persons  with  cowpox  without  any  untoward  symptoms. 

Mr.  JAMES  SIMPSON,  surgeon  to  the  Surrey  Dispensary, 
had  inoculated  between  fifty  and  sixty  without  any 
injury.  Considered  them  perfectly  secure  from  smallpox. 
A  child  of  nine  months  covered  with  crusta  lactea  re- 
sisted all  the  usual  remedies,  but  on  the  tenth  day  after 
he  had  inoculated  it  with  cowpox,  the  crust  began  to 
disappear,  and  the  twelfth  day  was  entirely  gone. 

Dr.  JOSEPH  MARSHALL  related  his  experience  as  a  vac- 
cine inoculator  in  the  Navy  and  at  Gibraltar,  Malta, 
Palermo,  Naples,  Rome  and  Genoa.  Everywhere  was 
successful.  Believed  he  had  operated  on  10,000,  and 
never  witnessed  any  ill  consequences  whatever.  On  the 
contrary,  children  in  a  weak  state  of  health,  after  passing 
through  the  vaccine  infection,  began  to  thrive  and  be- 
come vigorous. 

Mr.  JOHN  ADDINGTON,  surgeon,  had  used  Jenner's 
remedy  since  1799  in  eighty-one  cases.  One  third  of 
these  he  had  inoculated  with  smallpox,  and  subjected  to 
every  method  of  infection  he  could  devise,  but  found 
them  perfectly  proof  against  the  disease. 

Dr.  SKEY,  physician  to  the  Worcester  Hospital,  testified 
that  in  the  spring  of  1801  smallpox  was  epidemic  in 
Worcester.  He  inoculated  a  number  of  children  with 
cowpox,  and  none  of  them  took  smallpox  although  con- 
stantly exposed  to  contagion. 


190  VACCINATION. 


Dr.  THORNTON,  physician  to  the  Marylebone  Dis- 
pensary, had  inoculated  a  patient  with  cowpox,  and 
afterwards  with  smallpox  at  twelve  different  times  dur- 
ing the  past  three  years  without  effect.  He  had  even 
slept  with  a  person  in  natural  smallpox,  who  died,  but 
took  no  harm.  When  at  Lord  Lonsdale's  in  the  North 
he  had  operated  on  upwards  of  a  thousand,  and  had 
completely  satisfied  himself,  and  all  the  medical  practi- 
tioners in  that  part  of  England,  that  cowpox  was  a  mild 
disease,  hardly  deserving  the  name  of  a  disease.  It  was 
not  contagious ;  it  never  disfigured  the  person,  never 
produced  blindness,  nor  excited  other  diseases.  It  was 
equally  safe  whether  during  the  period  of  pregnancy,  or 
the  earliest  infancy,  or  extreme  old  age. 

Dr.  BAILLIE  then  gave  his  influential  judgment.  He 
thought  cowpox  an  extremely  mild  disease,  and  when  a 
patient  had  properly  undergone  it,  he  was  perfectly 
secure  from  the  future  infection  of  smallpox:  and 
further,  if  Dr.  Jenner  had  not  chosen  openly  and  honour- 
ably to  explain  to  the  public  all  he  knew  upon  the 
subject,  he  might  have  acquired  a  considerable  fortune. 
In  his  opinion  it  was  the  most  important  discovery  ever 
made  in  medicine. 

Mr.  DAVID  TAYLOR,  surgeon  of  Wootton-under-Edge, 
had  inoculated  about  two  thousand  persons  with  cowpox 
without  a  single  failure,  nor  had  he  met  with  any  ulcera- 
tions,  tumours,  or  other  diseases  following  the  operation. 
He  knew  Jenner's  practice  in  Gloucestershire.  It  was  in 
a  very  populous  neighbourhood  where  there  was  not 
another  physician  within  sixteen  miles.  He  had  sur- 
rendered an  income  of  £600  a  year  to  devote  himself  to 
the  public  service. 

As  a  final  specimen  of  this  medical  evidence  I  may 
cite  Mr.  JOHN  RING,  the  petitioner's  henchman.  He 
considered  Jenner  the  author  of  Vaccine  Inoculation,  a 
discovery  the  most  valuable  and  important  ever  made  by 
man.  It  was  a  perfect  and  permanent  security  against 
smallpox.  He  had  himself  inoculated  about  1200,  of 
whom  a  thousand  had  exposed  themselves  to  smallpox 


JENNER  BEFORE  PARLIAMENT,  1802.  191 

infection  with  impunity.  There  was  no  danger  whatever 
from  the  New  Inoculation  unless  from  ignorance  and 
neglect.  One  in  every  hundred  inoculated  with  smallpox 
in  London  died,  owing  to  the  unwholesome  atmosphere 
and  the  necessity  of  operating  on  children  at  an  improper 
age.  If  Jenner  had  kept  his  discovery  to  himself  he 
might  have  made  £10,000  a  year  by  it ;  for  others  had 
got  as  much  or  more  by  the  practice  of  physic. 

This  evidence,  better  than  any  secondary  description, 
will  enable  the  reader  to  appreciate  the  prevalent  furore 
as  it  affected  the  leaders  of  the  medical  world.  At  the 
same  time  it  is  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  craze  was 
superficial.  Any  radical  change  in  conviction  or  practice 
is  never  accomplished  thus  easily  or  thus  rapidly.  The 
medical  men  who  bore  witness  for  cowpox  had  been  bred 
to  inoculation  with  smallpox,  for  which  cowpox  was 
substituted.  The  change  was  essentially  trivial.  The 
trouble,  the  danger,  and  the  uncertainty  of  variolous 
inoculation  were  generally  recognised,  and  when  cowpox 
was  recommended  as  a  mild  form  of  smallpox,  it  was  not 
difficult  to  appreciate  the  asserted  advantage :  for,  as  it 
was  argued,  no  one  can  have  smallpox  twice,  and  as  the 
mildest  attack  of  smallpox  is  as  prohibitive  of  a  second 
attack  as  the  severest,  therefore  cowpox  (which  is  small- 
pox in  mild  form)  must  protect  as  effectually  when 
inoculated.  With  logic  so  admirable,  it  was  in  nowise 
wonderful  that  so  many  were  carried  away;  but  un- 
fortunately, as  so  often  happens,  matter-of-fact  did  not 
correspond  to  the  admirable  logic. 

The  DUKE  OF  CLARENCE  testified  that  he  had  availed 
himself  of  Jenner's  discovery  from  the  outset.  His 
children,  his  household  and  farm  servants  were  all 
protected.  A  postillion  positively  refused  to  be  operated 
on,  and  eighteen  months  after  he  caught  smallpox  in  the 
most  virulent  form.  Children  who  had  undergone  cow- 
pox  were  constantly  in  the  room  where  the  lad  lay  and 
suffered  no  harm. 

The  EARL  OF  BERKELEY  had  his  son  inoculated  with 
cowpox  by  Dr.  Jenner  at  the  age  of  six  months.  One  of 


192  VACCINATION. 

his  maid-servants  took  smallpox  and  died,  and  the 
effluvia  during  her  illness  was  so  offensive  that  his  ser- 
vants had  to  move  to  another  part  of  the  house.  To 
test  the  reality  of  his  son's  protection,  he  sent  for  Jenner, 
and  got  him  to  inoculate  the  boy  with  pox  from  the 
maid.  The  child  was  found  to  be  proof,  for  the  inocula- 
tion had  no  effect — To  illustrate  the  validity  of  the 
Gloucestershire  tradition,  he  related  how  a  man  of  72  in 
his  service  had  caught  cowpox  when  a  boy  of  15  whilst 
milking,  and  in  consequence  always  reckoned  himself 
secure  from  smallpox,  exposing  himself  to  the  disease 
with  complete  indifference. 

LORD  Rons  gave  similar  evidence.  His  child  had 
been  inoculated  with  cowpox  at  the  age  of  three  months, 
and  he  was  perfectly  satisfied  that  he  could  never  have 
smallpox. 

Then  there  were  lay  practitioners,  of  whom  Jenner 's 
nephew,  the  Hev.  G.  C.  JENNER,  may  be  taken  as  an 
example.  He  bore  witness  that  he  had  inoculated  3000 
with  cowpox  without  a  single  unfavourable  case,  from 
the  earliest  infancy  to  eighty  years  of  age,  and  under 
circumstances  in  which  it  would  not  be  prudent  to  use 
variolous  virus ;  as,  for  example,  children  during  teething 
and  women  in  every  stage  of  pregnancy.  Upwards  of 
two  hundred  of  his  patients  had  been  afterwards  ino- 
culated with  smallpox  matter,  and  an  equal  number 
exposed  to  variolous  effluvia,  and  in  no  instance  did 
smallpox  ensue.  He  was  satisfied  that  as  soon  as  the 
new  practice  became  universal,  smallpox  would  be  anni- 
hilated. 

An  early  date  being  wanted  for  "the  discovery," 
EDWARD  GARDNER,  wine  and  spirit  dealer,  was  brought 
from  Gloucester  to  affirm  that  he  had  known  Jenner  for 
more  than  twenty-two  years,  and  had  been  in  the  con- 
stant habit  of  hearing  his  medical  opinions  and  dis- 
coveries. It  was  in  the  month  of  May,  1780,  that  Jenner 
first  informed  him  concerning  the  nature  of  cowpox  as  a 
sure  preventive  of  smallpox,  and  of  the  theory  he  had 
formed  on  the  subject ;  declaring  his  full  and  perfect 


JENNER  BEFORE  PARLIAMENT,  1802.  193 

confidence  that  the  virus  might  be  continued  in  perpetuity 
from  one  human  being  to  another  until  smallpox  was 
extinguished. 

It  is  needless  to  stigmatise  Gardner's  testimony  afresh. 
It  possibly  had  its  foundation  in  Jenner  discussing  the 
familiar  rural  faith  in  cowpox.  Sir  EVERARD  HOME 
mentioned  to  the  Committee  that  Jenner  had  brought 
a  drawing  to  London  in  1788  of  Variolse  Vaccinse  as  it 
appeared  on  the  finger  of  a  milker,  and  had  shown  it  to 
John  Hunter,  who  advised  him  to  look  further  into  the 
matter;  but  it  was  not  pretended  that  he  spoke  to 
Hunter  of  the  matured  conviction  revealed  to  Gardner 
eight  years  before. 

The  Committee  heard  evidence  as  to  the  knowledge 
and  use  of  cowpox  apart  from  Jenner,  and  their  verdict 
was  given  as  follows — 

The  disorder  itself,  and  its  specific  property  of  securing  against 
Smallpox  infection,  was  not  a  discovery  of  Dr.  Jenner 's ;  for  in 
various  parts  of  England,  in  Gloucestershire  and  Devonshire  parti- 
cularly, there  was  an  opinion  of  that  sort  current  among  the 
common  people  employed  in  dairies,  which  the  observations  of  the 
inoculators  for  the  Smallpox  tended  to  confirm.  It  appears  not 
improbable  that  in  some  very  rare  instances  this  knowledge  was 
carried  one  step  farther,  and  that  the  Cowpox  was  communicated 
either  by  handling  the  teat,  or  by  inoculation  from  the  animal,  for 
the  purpose  and  with  the  intention  of  securing  against  the  danger 
of  Smallpox ;  but  the  practice  of  which  Dr.  Jenner  asserts  himself 
to  be  the  original  Inventor  is,  the  inoculation  from  one  human 
being  to  another,  and  the  mode  of  transferring  indefinitely,  the 
vaccine  matter  without  any  diminution  of  its  specific  power,  to 
which  it  does  not  appear  that  any  person  has  ever  alleged  a  title. 

Thus  the  Committee  disallowed  Jenner's  claim,  whilst 
indicating  the  only  colourable  point  of  novel ty,namely,  the 
transfer  from  arm  to  arm  of  virus.  At  the  same  time,  it 
should  not  be  forgotten  that  inoculation  from  arm  to  arm 
with  "  mild  kinds  of  smallpox  "  was  an  existing  practice, 
and  there  was  little  merit  to  speak  of  in  Jenner  doing 
the  same  thing  with  horse  or  cowpox. 

There  was  no  opposition — no  devil's  advocate ;  but  it 
may  be  held  that  Dr.  Pearson  assumed  that  office.  He 
was  heard  with  impatience,  and  afterwards  delivered  his 
13 


194  VACCINATION. 


mind  in  An  Examination,  to  which  we  shall  presently 
refer. 

The  Report  to  the  House  was  brought  up  on  the  2nd 
of  June,  1802,  and  was  conclusive  as  to  the  utility  of  the 
discovery.  Indeed,  the  evidence  on  that  head  was  only 
cut  short  because  it  threatened  to  be  interminable.  The 
judgment  of  the  Committee  reiterated  the  common  per- 
suasion— "As  soon  as  the  New  Inoculation  becomes 
universal,  it  must  absolutely  extinguish  one  of  the  most 
destructive  disorders  by  which  the  human  race  has  been 
visited." 

Admiral  BERKELEY,  chairman  of  the  Committee,  com- 
mended the  Report  to  the  House.  He  considered  the 
discovery  as  unquestionably  the  greatest  ever  made  for 
the  preservation  of  the  human  species.  It  was  proved 
that  in  the  United  Kingdom  45,000  perished  annually 
from  smallpox ;  but  throughout  the  world  what  was  the 
desolation !  Not  a  second  struck  but  a  victim  was  sac- 
rificed at  the  altar  of  that  most  horrible  of  diseases.  He 
should  therefore  move  that  a  sum  of  not  less  than  £10,000 
be  granted  to  the  Petitioner,  but  if  the  House  thought  fit 
to  adopt  any  larger  sum,  he  should  hold  himself  free  to 
vote  for  it.  Why,  Dr.  Jenner's  expenses  in  postage  alone 
had  been  from  25s.  to  80s.  a  day ! 

Sir  HENRY  MILDMAY  did  not  think  £10,000  at  all 
adequate.  Had  Jenner  kept  his  secret  he  might  have 
made  at  least  £100,000.  He  moved  that  he  should  have 
£20,000. 

Mr.  WINDHAM  said  the  petitioner  had  surrendered  his 
discovery  to  his  country,  and  was  therefore  entitled  to 
remuneration.  The  discovery  had  been  the  labour  of 
years  and  the  fruit  of  extensive  practice. 

Sir  JAMES  SINCLAIR  ERSKINE  was  assured  that  Jenner 
had  expended  £6000  in  the  propagation  of  his  discovery, 
and  if  he  had  £10,000,  he  would  be  left  with  no  more 
than  £4000.  Besides,  he  had  given  up  a  practice  of  £600 
a  year  to  benefit  his  fellow-creatures. 

Mr.  COURTNEY  observed  that  the  evidence  showed  that 
40,000  men  would  be  annually  preserved  to  the  State  by 


JENNER  BEFORE  PARLIAMENT,  1802.  195 


the  New  Inoculation.  These  would  return  £200,000  a  year 
to  the  Exchequer,  and  if  the  Petitioner  had  only  a  tithe 
of  that  sum  for  one  year,  he  was  entitled  to  £20,000. 

Mr. WILBERFORCE  stated  that  Jenner  had  spent  upwards 
of  twenty  years  in  completing  his  discovery.  He  was  no 
adventurer  seeking  to  push  himself  before  the  world.  He 
had  already  attained  to  great  celebrity  in  his  profession, 
and  had  sacrificed  his  practice  for  the  public  good.  In 
every  view  he  thought  the  larger  sum  ought  to  be 
granted. 

Mr.  GREY  thought  £10,000  would  be  no  more  than  an 
indemnity  for  expenses.  He  hoped  the  House  would  vote 
for  £20,000. 

Mr.  BANKS  said  there  was  no  question  as  to  the  utility 
of  the  discovery.  If  he  felt  more  niggardly  than  other 
members,  it  was  because  his  paramount  duty  consisted  in 
guarding  the  public  purse.  That  purse  was  a  large  one, 
but  it  was  not  to  be  dipped  into  at  pleasure.  The  strength 
of  the  country  lay  in  economy  and  sound  finance.  He  did 
not  see  that  a  case  had  been  made  out  for  so  large  a  sum 
as  £10,000.  The  discovery  itself  might  be  trusted  to  pay 
its  author.  He  always  looked  on  a  Report  of  a  Committee 
with  jealousy,  for  it  was  controlled  by  the  friends  of  the 
Petitioner,  and  there  was  no  one  with  sufficient  mo- 
tive to  provide  the  correctives  required  in  the  public 
interest. 

Mr.  ADDINGTON,  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  held 
that  the  value  of  the  discovery  was  without  example,  and 
beyond  calculation.  So  much,  indeed,  was  not  contested. 
The  Petitioner  had  received  the  highest  reward  in  the 
approbation,  the  unanimous  approbation  of  the  House ; 
an  approbation  richly  deserved,  since  it  was  the  result  of 
the  greatest  discovery  since  the  creation  of  man.  What- 
ever money  the  House  might  see  fit  to  vote  on  some  future 
occasion,  his  present  duty  was  to  recommend  the  smaller 
sum  of  £10,000.  In  doing  so,  he  admitted,  he  surrendered 
his  private  inclination  to  his  sense  of  public  duty.  He 
had,  however,  the  satisfaction  in  knowing  that  this  dis- 
cussion had  conferred  on  Dr.  Jenner  a  reward  that  would 


196  VACCINATION. 


endure  for  ever,  whilst  the  comfort  of  his  family  would 
be  amply  ensured  in  the  extension  of  practice  that  would 
follow  the  approbation  of  the  House. 

The  question  was  then  put  that  the  words  £10,000  do 
stand  part  of  the  resolution ;  when  the  Committee  divided 
— Ayes  59,  Noes  56,  Majority  3. 

The  discussion  in  the  House  of  Commons  shows  how 
wide  was  the  general  craze.  Facts  and  figures  were 
evolved  at  discretion  and  repeated  indiscriminately.  To 
rave  about  Jenner,  the  saviour  from  small-pox,  was  the 
mode.  It  was  as  if  all  had  consented  to  go  mad  together. 
Mr.  Dunning,  a  surgeon,  otherwise  rational,  broke  into 
prophetic  fury — 

With  pride,  with  just  and  national  pride,  we  boast  a  Newton  and 
a  Harvey ;  posterity  will  boast  a  Jenner !  * 

Considering  the  value  set  on  "the  great  discovery,"  the 
award  of  £10,000  was  not  excessive.  In  the  Medical 
Journal  it  stands  recorded — 

We  have  never  witnessed  a  more  unanimous  and  general  dis- 
appointment than  that  which  has  been  expressed,  not  only  by  the 
profession,  but  by  the  public  at  large,  at  the  smallness  of  the 
remuneration,  f 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  the 
times  were  dark  and  hard,  cruelly  hard,  through  war  and 
scanty  harvests;  the  quartern  loaf  selling  at  Is.  lid.,  a 
significant  index  of  the  people's  misery. 

*  Medical  Journal,  January,  1802.  +  Ib.  July,  1802. 


PEARSON'S  EXAMINATION.  197 

CHAPTER  XL 

PEARSON'S  EXAMINATION* 

A  FEW  weeks  after  the  award  of  £10,000  to  Jenner  by 
the  House  of  Commons,  Dr.  Pearson  published  An  Ex- 
amination of  the  report  of  the  committee.  He  did  not 
contest  Jenner's  claim  to  consideration,  but  the  ground 
on  which  it  was  advanced,  and  on  which  it  was  conceded; 
drawing  attention  to  the  manner  in  which  the  claims  set 
forth  in  Jenner's  petition  had  been  reduced  to  "  inocula- 
tion from  one  human  being  to  another,"  whilst  a  new 
claim  was  invented  for  him,  "  to  wit,  the  mode  of  trans- 
ferring, indefinitely,  the  vaccine  matter  without  any 
diminution  of  its  specific  power." 

What  Pearson  held,  and  rightly  held,  was,  that  the 
public  acceptance  of  the  New  Inoculation  was  due  to 
Woodville  and  himself,  and  not  to  Jenner — 

The  Cowpock  Inoculation  (after  Dr.  Jenner's  book  was  published 
in  June,  1798,  which  contained  seven  or  eight  cases,  the  whole 
result  of  his  experience)  was  not  practised  by  any  person  that  I 
know  of,  till  January,  1799,  neither  Dr.  Jenner,  nor  any  person 
that  I  could  find  being  in  possession  of  matter;  but,  in  January, 
1799,  in  consequence  of  a  general  inquiry,  which  I  had  instituted 
immediately  after  Jenner's  publication,  information  was  given  of 
the  Cowpock  Disease  breaking  out  in  two  Cow-stables  near  Lon- 
don, and  from  these  sources  Dr.  Woodville  and  myself  collected 
matter,  by  which,  in  the  course  of  three  months,  300  persons  (not 
fewer,  I  think)  were  inoculated  for  the  Cowpock  in  addition  to  the 
seven  or  eight  cases  of  Dr.  Jenner,  then  the  whole  stock  of  facts  of 
Inoculation  before  the  public.  Besides  carrying  on  the  Inoculation 
ourselves  in  this  manner,  we  disseminated  the  matter  throughout 
the  country,  in  particular  to  Dr.  Jenner  himself;  and  especially,  I 
within  that  time  issued  a  printed  letter,  directed  to  upwards  of  two 
hundred  practitioners  in  different  parts  of  the  kingdom,  containing 
thread  impregnated  with  the  Cowpock  matter.  .  .  By  the  close 
of  1799  about  4000  persons  had  been  inoculated  by  Dr.  Woodville, 
myself,  and  our  correspondents. 

*  An  Examination  of  the  Report  of  the  Committee  of  the  House  of 
Commons  on  the  Claims  of  Remuneration  for  the  Vaccine  Pock  Inocula- 
tion: containing  a  Statement  of  the  Principal  Historical  Facts  of  the 
Vaccinia.  By  George  Pearson,  M.D.,  F.R.S.  London,  1802.  8vo. 
Pp.  196. 


198  VACCINATION. 


Pearson  also  claimed  to  have  cleared  away  difficulties 
created  by  Jenner's  statements,  some  of  which  were' most 
prejudicial  to  the  public  acceptance  of  the  New  Inocula- 
tion— 

I  published  experiments  of  inoculating  persons  with  the  Cowpock 
to  show  that  they  could  not  take  the  Cowpock  after  the  Smallpox, 
contrary  to  Dr,  Jenuer.  Secondly,  experiments  to  show  that  persons 
could  not  take  the  Cowpock  who  had  already  gone  through  the  Cow- 
pock,  also  contrary  to  Dr.  Jenner.*  Thirdly,  many  persons  had  at 
this  period  made  experiments  to  show  that  the  Cowpox  did  not 
originate  in  the  grease  of  Horses'  heels,  as  Dr.  Jenner  had  asserted. 
In  the  spring  of  1799,  a  second  publication  appeared  from  Dr.  Jen- 
ner recommending  caustic  or  escharotics  to  the  inoculated  parts  in 
Cowpox,  which  we  found  wholly  unnecessary  in  practice ;  and  I 
consider  that  the  distinctive  characters  of  the  Cowpock  were  better 
understood  by  some  of  us  than  by  Dr.  Jenner  himself. 

One  can  only  say  of  these  statements  of  Pearson  as 
against  Jenner,  that  they  are  simple  matters  of  fact, 
impugn  them  whoso  list.  It  is  impossible  to  controvert 
Pearson's  assertion — 

That  the  whole  of  Jenner's  experience  extended  to  seven  or  eight 
cases,  and  a  part  only  of  these — namely,  four — were  from  human 
subject  to  human  subject ;  and  not  until  long  after  Dr.  Woodville 
and  myself  had  published  several  hundred  instances  of  vaccine 
virus  transmitted  from  arm  to  arm,  had  he  any  experiments  to  set 
alongside  ours. 

They  had  to  find  out  for  themselves  when  to  take  virus 
from  the  cow,  how  to  preserve  it  when  taken,  how  to 
dress  inoculated  arms,  when  to  take  virus  from  the  arm, 
and,  in  short,  to  do  everything  that  constitutes  the  dif- 
ference between  a  suggestion  and  an  art. 

Pearson,  too,  as  we  have  seen,  had  a  leading  part  in 
the  formation  of  the  first  Institution  for  the  Inoculation 
of  the  Vaccine  Pock,  with  which  Jenner  had  not  only 
nothing  to  do,  but  would  have  nothing  to  do  :  concerning 
which  wrote  Pearson — 

*  Such  was  the  logic,  but  such  was  not  the  fact.  If  no  one  could  have 
Smallpox  twice,  and  if  inoculated  Cowpox  was  equivalent  to  Smallpox, 
no  one  could  have  Cowpox  twice.  Such  was  the  argument.  Pearson 
did  not  foresee  its  systematic  refutation  exemplified  in  Re- Vaccination, 
septennial,  triennial,  annual. 


PEARSON'S  EXAMINATION.  199 

The  Vaccine  Inoculation  was  next  considerably  established  by 
the  Cowpock  Institution,  of  which  I  was  one  of  the  founders,  com- 
mencing at  the  close  of  1799  ;  which  Institution  has  been  the  prin- 
cipal office  for  the  supplying  the  world  in  general,  and  the  Army 
and  Navy  in  particular,  with  matter ;  and  where  a  regular  register 
is  kept  of  each  of  the  cases  inoculated. 

As  to  Jenner  keeping  the  secret  of  Cowpox  and  making 
a  great  fortune  out  of  it,  Pearson  replied,  first,  that  he  had 
not  proved  his  remedy ;  second,  that  he  would  have  had 
to  persuade  the  public  to  believe  in  him ;  and,  third,  that 
too  much  was  known  about  Cowpox  to  have  made  a 
secret  possible.  Moreover,  the  assertion  that  he  might 
have  earned  £10,000  a  year  and  a  fortune  of  £150,000 
was  absurd — 

Such  a  fortune  no  one  ever  acquired  by  physic  in  this  or  any 
other  country — far  exceeding  the  greatest  ever  known,  those  of  Sir 
Theodore  Mayerne  in  the  first  half  of  the  17th  century,  and  of  the 
still  greater  one  of  Dr.  Ratcliffe  in  the  early  part  of  last  century. 

When  it  was  further  said,  that  experiments  in  Vaccine 
Inoculation  had  occupied  twenty  years  of  Jenner 's  life,  that 
they  had  cost  him  £6000,  and  that  he  had  surrendered  a 
practice  of  £600  a  year  in  the  populous  neighbourhood  of 
Berkeley  for  the  public  benefit — he  would  not  trust  him- 
self to  characterise  the  allegations. 

His  own  position,  Pearson  thus  defined — 

I  have  admitted  that  Dr.  Jenner  first  set  on  foot  the  inquiry  into 
the  advantages  of  Vaccine  Inoculation ;  but  I  apprehend  that  the 
practice  has  been  established  almost  entirely  by  other  practitioners ; 
and  that  his  new  facts,  or  which  I  consider  to  be  new,  have  been, 
in  my  opinion,  disproved  by  subsequent  observers;  and  that  in 
consequence  of  those  facts  being  disproved,  together  with  the  very 
ample  experiences  of  other  persons,  we  owe  the  present  extensive 
practice  of  the  Vaccine  Inoculation. 

Pearson  further  indicated  on  what  conditions  he  would 
have  been  satisfied  to  see  Jenner  rewarded — 

A  much  more  dignified  and  more  just  ground  of  claim,  and  an 
equally  favourable  one  for  remuneration,  would  have  been  in  terms 
denoting  that  the  Petitioner  had  proposed  a  new  kind  of  Inocula- 
tion, and  actually  furnished  some  instances  of  the  success  of  it, 
founded  upon  facts ;  of  which  some  were  brought  to  light  and  use, 
which  heretofore  had  only  been  locally  known  to  a  very  small 


200  VACCINATION. 


number  of  persons ;  and  others  were  discoveries  of  the  Author : 
further,  that  in  consequence  of  considerable  subsequent  investiga- 
tion, by  the  Author  and  others,  such  a  body  of  evidence  had  been 
obtained,  and  such  further  facts  had  been  discovered,  as  demon- 
strated the  advantages  of  the  new  practice. 

Whilst  willing  that  Jenner  should  be  rewarded,  for 
Woodville  and  for  himself,  Pearson  wanted  nothing :  he 
simply  maintained  that  the  judgment  of  the  House  of 
Commons  Committee  should  have  recognised  the  facts 
of  the  situation.  He  observed — 

I  have  some  authority  for  stating  that  the  members  of  the  Com- 
mittee did  not  unanimously  think  such  exclusive  claims  were 
just.  I  had  some  reason  to  expect  that  the  representation  of  the 
Committee  in  their  Eeport  would  have  been  such  as  to  have  satis- 
fied the  expectations,  not  exorbitant,  of  Dr.  Woodville  and  myself; 
such  as  would  have  cost  the  Petitioner  nothing,  to  wit,  a  mere 
acknowledgment  of  services.  The  most  unqualified  and  exclusive 
claims  having  been  decreed,  this  bounty  of  course  has  been  with- 
held, either  because  it  was  judged  to  be  not  owing,  or  from  some 
other  motive  which  I  will  not  name  ;  but  it  is  fitting  that  I  disclaim 
any  insinuation  of  unworthy  motives  actuating  those  with  whom 
judgment  was  invested. 

Considering  the  injustice  to  which  Pearson  had  been 
subjected,  and  the  provocation  he  had  received,  it  is 
impossible  to  refrain  from  admiration  of  the  serene  and 
impartial  temper  in  which  he  composed  his  Examination. 
Had  he  sat  as  judge  between  Jenner  and  himself,  he  could 
not  have  stated  the  case  with  greater  accuracy  and  absence 
of  bias.  He  fell  into  no  exaggeration ;  he  indulged  in  no 
sarcasm;  he  descended  to  no  abuse.  He  set  forth  the 
incidents  of  the  New  Inoculation  with  the  imperial  sim- 
plicity and  dignity  of  truth.  Where  others  had  gone 
crazed,  he  preserved  some  degree  of  sanity.  He  held  it 
to  be  premature  to  proclaim  the  extinction  of  Smallpox, 
or  to  say  with  Jenner  that  reports  of  failure  and  injury 
from  inoculated  Cowpox  were  beneath  contempt.  It  was 
only  time  and  experience  that  could  warrant  such  absolute 
assertion  and  prediction. 

It  is  said  that  in  hurricanes  of  panic  or  enthusiasm, 
wise  men  go  home  and  keep  quiet  until  the  sky  clears, 
resistance  being  folly.  For  immediate  effect  resistance 


PEARSON'S  EX  AMI N A  TION. 


201 


may  be  folly,  but  the  protest  of  truth  is  sometimes  im- 
perative, whatever  the  disposition  of  the  mob.  Pearson 
took  little  at  the  time  by  his  Examination :  it  entered 
into  far  too  many  details  for  general  apprehension ;  and 
it  was  convenient  to  account  for  his  opposition  as  due 
to  jealousy  and  envy.  Jenner  attempted  no  reply,  and 
assumed  profound  disdain.  His  silence  was  judicious, 
but  it  was  not  from  disdain. 

At  this  day  it  is  easy  to  see  that  Pearson  as  against 
Jenner  played  his  part  badly,  failing  to  recognise  his 
proper  advantage.  Jenner's  prescription  in  the  Inquiry 
of  1798  was  not  Cowpox.  It  was  Horsegrease  Cowpox. 
It  was  a  disease  of  the  horse  inoculated  on  the  cow. 
Cowpox  per  se  he  expressly  rejected  as  useless,  having  no 
specific  effect  on  the  human  constitution.  Pearson  and 
Woodville  entertained  Jenner's  prescription  in  good  faith. 
They  tried  to  generate  pox  on  the  cow  with  grease  from 
the  horse,  but  did  not  succeed.  Reluctantly  they  aban- 
doned Jenner's  prescription,  and  resorted  to  Cowpox. 

Whilst  Pearson  and  Woodville  were  without  prejudice 
against  Horsegrease  Cowpox,  it  was  otherwise  with  the 
public.  The  origin  of  Cowpox  in  Horsegrease  was  voted 
detestable,  and  had  the  origin  been  maintained,  it  is  not 
improbable  that  the  New  Inoculation  would  have  proved 
abortive. 

This  difficulty  Pearson  and  Woodville,  the  chief  pro- 
moters of  the  New  Inoculation,  cleared  away.  They  had 
tried  Horsegrease ;  they  considered  they  had  disproved 
Jenner's  assertion  concerning  it ;  and  they  were  able  to 
assure  the  public  that  they  inoculated  with  Cowpox,  and 
nothing  but  Cowpox,  and  had  no  connection  with  Horse- 
grease  whatever.  The  public  were  satisfied  ;  and  Inocula- 
tion with  Cowpox  became  the  rage,  fashionable  and 
philanthropic. 

What  did  Jenner  do  ?  Did  he  vindicate  his  prescrip- 
tion, the  fruit  of  thirty  years  of  incessant  thought, 
observation  and  experiment  ?  He  did  not.  On  the 
contrary  he  dropped  it.  He  said  not  another  word  about 


202  VACCINATION. 


it;  and  proceeded  to  claim  Cowpox  as  employed  by 
Pearson  and  Woodville  as  his  discovery.  In  his  petition 
to  Parliament  there  was  no  mention  of  Horsegrease  Cow- 
pox  ;  but  Cowpox,  with  "  its  beneficial  effect  of  rendering 
the  persons  inoculated  therewith  perfectly  secure  through 
life  from  the  infection  of  Smallpox,"  was  set  forth  as  the 
result  of  his  most  attentive  and  laborious  investigation 
at  the  sacrifice  of  time,  money,  and  professional  advance- 
ment. We  have  to  recollect  that  Jenner  was  inspired 
with  what  he  called  "  the  fond  hope  of  enjoying  inde- 
pendence," and  he  was  not  slow  to  recognise,  that  if  he 
stood  by  Horsegrease  Cowpox  his  "  fond  hope  "  would  be 
wrecked.  The  statement  may  seem  incredible,  but  the 
fact  of  the  transformation  is  manifest  at  large  to  any  one 
who  will  take  the  trouble  to  compare  Jenner's  Inquiry 
of  1798  with  his  Petition  to  the  House  of  Commons  in 
1802. 

Pearson  failed  to  arrest  the  imposture.  He  might 
have  said  to  Jenner,  "  Your  discovery  was  not  Cowpox  : 
that  was  well  known  to  every  dairymaid  in  your  neigh- 
bourhood. Your  prescription  was  Horsegrease  Cowpox. 
You  condemned  Cowpox,  which  Cowpox  has  nevertheless 
been  brought  into  use  by  Woodville  and  me.  Keep  to 
your  Horsegrease  Cowpox;  make  what  you  can  of  it; 
and  leave  us  alone." 

Had  Pearson  taken  this  course,  he  would  have  fixed 
Jenner  to  his  discovery,  such  as  it  was,  and  have  clearly 
defined  and  established  his  own  and  Woodville's  service 
in  rendering  the  New  Inoculation  practicable  and  popular. 
But  he  failed  to  draw  a  firm  line  between  Woodville  and 
himself  and  Jenner,  and  to  insist  that  they  were  operat- 
ing, not  only  with  a  different  pox,  but  with  a  form  of 
pox  by  him  rejected  as  useless.  Through  this  default,  he 
enabled  Jenner  to  intrude  into  a  province  that  was  not 
his  own,  and  to  reap  where  he  had  not  sown,  and  gather 
where  he  had  not  strawed.  It  is  to  be  admitted  that  the 
facts  as  stated  were  all  involved  in  Pearson's  Examina- 
tion, but  they  were  involved,  and  required  picking  out 
and  sharper  definition  to  give  them  effect.  Truth  is 


PEARSON'S  EXAMINATION.  203 

truth,  but  truth  to  have  its  rightful  influence  has  to  be 
made  plain.  It  is  of  little  avail  to  have  a  good  cause  at 
law  if  the  means  are  wanting  to  place  its  goodness 
manifest  and  paramount  over  contention  to  the  contrary. 
This,  too,  may  be  observed :  Pearson  was  not  in  condi- 
tion to  offer  the  manner  of  resistance  specified.  To  have 
turned  Jenner's  flank,  it  would  have  been  necessary  to 
discredit  Cowpox ;  and  Pearson  was  committed  to  Cow- 
pox.  Jenner  had  been  familiar  from  youth  with  the 
dairymaids'  faith  in  Cowpox.  Why  then  did  he  not 
advertise  its  virtue  ?  Because  it  had  been  proved  to  him 
that  the  dairymaids'  confidence  was  illusory.  His  recom- 
mendation of  Horsegrease  Cowpox  attested  his  distrust 
in  Cowpox.  If  Pearson  had  asked  himself,  What  induced 
Jenner  to  set  aside  Cowpox  for  Horsegrease  Cowpox  ? 
the  answer  would  have  revealed  to  him  a  whole  series  of 
facts  to  the  discredit  of  that  prophylaxy  of  which  he  and 
Woodville  had  constituted  themselves  advocates.  Thus, 
fettered  by  his  own  prepossession,  Pearson  was  unable  to 
deal  effectually  with  Jenner  without  incurring  a  dis- 
enchantment fatal  to  his  own  enterprise. 

When  we  recognise  that  Jenner's  prescription  was  a 
disease  of  the  horse  communicated  to  the  cow,  which 
Pearson  and  Woodville  set  aside  for  Cowpox,  the  con- 
troversy as  to  the  originator  of  the  use  of  Cowpox  for 
inoculation  loses  significance.  We  have  to  assert  per- 
emptorily that  Jenner  had  no  claim  to  the  use  of  Cowpox 
whatever.  It  is  true  that  he  advanced  the  claim  in  his 
Origin  of  the  Vaccine  Inoculation  in  1801,  and  in  his 
Petition  to  Parliament  in  1802 ;  but  those  who  refer  to 
his  Inquiry  of  1798  will  require  no  further  proof  of  his 
mendacity.  That  his  claim  to  the  use  of  Cowpox  was 
entertained  can  only  be  ascribed  to  that  indolence,  in- 
eptitude and  ignorance  on  the  part  of  the  world  whereon 
quacks  presume  and  prosper. 

It  was  Pearson  and  Woodville,  I  once  more  repeat, 
who  ^  diffused  and  popularised  Cowpox;  and  Pearson's 
inquiries  left  no  doubt  that  the  faith  in  Cowpox  as  a 


204  VACCINATION. 


preventive  of  Smallpox  was  widely  entertained;  and 
that  the  substitution  of  Cowpox  for  Smallpox  in  inocula- 
tion was  a  mere  question  of  time  and  accident.  Mr. 
Downe  of  Bridport  informed  Pearson  that  a  surgeon  in 
his  neighbourhood  suffered  discredit  in  practice  because 
it  was  reported  that  he  inoculated  with  Cowpox  instead 
of  Smallpox;  and  the  papers  of  Mr.  Nash,  surgeon,  of 
Shaftesbury  proved  that  in  1781  he  had  the  project  of 
Cowpox  Inoculation  distinctly  before  him.  The  evidence 
of  Benjamin  Jesty,  farmer  of  Downshay  in  the  Isle  of 
Purbeck,  has  usually  been  taken  as  most  conclusive  in 
relation  to  the  immanence  of  the  New  Inoculation  in  the 
common  mind.  Jesty  was  invited  to  London  by  the 
conductors  of  the  Original  Vaccine  Pock  Institution,  44 
Broad  Street,  Golden  Square ;  and  in  August,  1805,  they 
had  him  with  his  wife  and  two  sons  under  examination. 
In  their  report*  it  is  said — 

We  think  it  a  matter  of  justice  to  Mr.  Jesty,  and  beneficial  to  the 
public,  to  attest,  that  among  other  facts  he  has  afforded  decisive 
evidence  of  his  having  vaccinated  his  wife  and  two  sons,  Robert 
and  Benjamin,  in  the  year  1774;  who  were  thereby  rendered 
insusceptible  of  the  Smallpox,  as  appears  from  the  frequent  exposure 
of  all  three  to  that  disorder  during  the  course  of  31  years,  and  from 
the  inoculation  of  the  two  sons  for  the  Smallpox  15  years  ago. 

It  is  to  be  observed  that  insusceptibility  to  Smallpox 
was  by  no  means  infrequent  apart  from  Cowpox ;  and  as 
fear  of  Smallpox  predisposes  to  attack,  so,  on  the  other 
hand,  confidence  in  security,  whether  by  Cowpox  or 
other  charm,  would  tend  to  exemption. 

Jesty's  reasons  for  his  experiment  were  thus  specified — 

He  was  led  to  undertake  the  novel  practice  in  1774  to  counteract 
the  Smallpox,  at  that  time  prevalent  at  Yetminster,  from  knowing 
the  common  opinion  of  the  country  ever  since  he  was  a  boy  (now 
60  years  ago)  that  persons  who  had  gone  through  the  Cowpock 
naturally,  that  is  to  say  by  taking  it  from,  cows,  were  insusceptible 
of  the  Smallpox. 

By  himself  being  incapable  of  taking  the  Smallpox,  having  gone 
through  the  Cowpock  many  years  before. 

From  knowing  many  individuals  who  after  the  Cowpock  could 
not  have  the  Smallpox  excited. 

*  Edinburgh  Medical  and  Surgical  Journal,  October,  1805.     P.  513. 


PEARSON'S  EXAMINATION.  205 

From  believing  that  the  Cowpock  was  an  affection  free  from 
danger ;  and  from  his  opinion  that  by  the  Cowpock  Inoculation  he 
should  avoid  engrafting  various  diseases  of  the  human  constitution, 
such  as  "  the  Evil,  madness,  lues,  and  many  bad  humours,"  as  he 
called  them. 

In  these  reasons  we  have  the  Cowpox  doctrine  as 
prevalent  in  Dorsetshire,  which  Jesty  developed  in  family 
practice.  The  report  proceeds — 

The  remarkably  vigorous  health  of  Mr.  Jesty,  his  wife,  and  two 
sons,  now  31  years  subsequent  to  the  Cowpock,  and  his  own 
healthy  appearance,  at  this  time  70  years  of  age,  afford  a  singu- 
larly strong  proof  of  the  harmlessness  of  that  affection ;  but  the 
public  must,  with  particular  interest,  hear  that  during  the  late 
visit  to  town,  Mr.  Kobert  Jesty  submitted  publicly  to  inoculation 
for  the  Smallpox  in  the  most  rigorous  manner ;  and  that  Mr.  Jesty 
also  was  subjected  to  the  trial  of  inoculation  for  the  Cowpock  after 
the  most  efficacious  mode,  without  either  of  them  being  infected. 

It  is  curious  how  evidence  conforms  to  prepossession. 
Dr.  Pearson  and  his  associates  were  persuaded  that  as  no 
one  could  have  Smallpox  twice,  neither  could  any  one 
have  Cowpox  twice.  Jesty  had  Cowpox  when  young, 
and  when  at  three  score  they  found  him  insusceptible, 
they  took  it  for  granted  that  re- vaccination  was  impossible. 
Robert  Jesty,  who  had  Cowpox  thirty-one  years  before 
was  at  the  same  time  inoculated  with  Smallpox,  and  as 
that  likewise  failed  to  take,  the  experiment  enforced  the 
desired  conclusion. 

Having  turned  out  so  well,  praise  and  portraiture  were 
bestowed  on  Jesty — 

The  circumstances  in  which  Mr.  Jesty  purposely  instituted  the 
Vaccine  Pock  Inoculation  in  his  own  family,  namely,  without  any 
precedent,  but  merely  from  reasoning  upon  the  nature  of  the 
affection  among  cows,  and  from  knowing  its  effects  in  the  casual 
way  among  men,  his  exemption  from  the  prevailing  popular 
prejudices,  and  his  disregard  of  the  clamorous  reproaches  of  his 
neighbours,  will  entitle  him,  in  our  opinion,  to  the  respect  of  the 
public  for  his  superior  strength  of  mind.  Further,  his  conduct  in 
again  furnishing  such  decisive  proofs  of  the  permanent  anti- 
variolous  efficacy  of  the  Cowpock,  in  the  present  [1805]  discontented 
state  of  mind  in  many  families,  by  submitting  to  Inoculation,  justly 
claims  at  least  the  gratitude  of  the  country. 

As  a  testimony  of  our  personal  regard,  and  to  commemorate  so 


206  VACCINATION. 


extraordinary  a  fact  as  that  of  preventing  the  Smallpox  by  inocu- 
lating for  the  Cowpock  31  years  ago,  at  our  request,  a  three-quarter 
length  picture  of  Mr.  Jesty  is  painted  by  that  excellent  artist,  Mr. 
Sharp,  to  be  preserved  at  the  Original  Vaccine  Pock  Institution. 


Visiting 
Apothecaries. 


GEO.  PEARSON,  )  FRAS.  RIVERS,       ) 

LAW.  NIHELL,  >  Physicians.  Ev.  A.  BRANDS,    > 

THOS.  NELSON,  )  PH.  DE  BRUYN,     ) 

T.  KEATE,          )  Consulting  JOHN  HEAVISIDE,  )  Trfaia.rfr~ 

T.  FOSTER,         \  Surgeons.  THOMAS  PAYNE,      ]  4 

J.  C.  CARPUE,    )  c  WILLIAM  SANCHO,  Secretary. 

J.  DORATT,         ]  burgeons. 

6th  September,  1805. 

In  the  church-yard  of  Worth  Matravers,  Dorset,  there 
is  a  grave-stone  with  this  inscription — 

SACRED  TO  THE  MEMORY  OF 
BENJAMIN    JESTY,  OF  DOWNSHAY, 

WHO  DEPARTED  THIS  LIFE 

APRIL  16TH, 1816,  AGED  79  YEARS. 

He  was  born  at  Yetminster,  in  this  County,  and  was  an  upright 
honest  man,  particularly  noted  for  having  been  the  first  person 
known  that  introduced 

THE  COWPOX  BY  INOCULATION, 

and  who,  from  his  great  strength  of  mind,  made  the  experiment 
from  the  Cow  on  his  Wife  and  two  Sons  in  the  year  1774. 

Jesty  is  frequently  played  off  against  Jenner,  as  having 
anticipated  him,  but  under  a  misapprehension.  Jesty 
inoculated  with  Cowpox,  sharing  the  dairymaids'  faith 
that  it  prevented  Smallpox.  Jenner  knew  that  the 
dairymaids  were  wrong,  and  that  Cowpox  did  not  avert 
Smallpox.  What  he  recommended  was  Cowpox  pro- 
duced by  Horsegrease.  Pearson  and  Woodville  dis- 
regarded Jenner's  recommendation  and  made  use  of 
Cowpox  like  Jesty,  which  substitution  Jenner  did  not 
resist ;  and  not  only  did  not  resist,  but  claimed  as  the 
fulfilment  of  his  programme !  Jenner  should  never  be 
suffered  to  get  mixed  up  with  Jesty,  and  the  course  of 
his  procedure  be  thereby  obscured. 


PEARSON'S  EXAMINATION.  207 

I  am  explicit  to  iteration  because  the  truth  is  not 
recognised  and  may  be  accounted  incredible.  In  another 
way  the  facts  may  be  thrown  into  relief  if  we  inquire, 
How  would  Jenner  have  fared  had  he  applied  for  a 
patent?  Suppose  his  several  publications  were  submitted 
to  a  patent-agent,  In  what  manner  could  a  tenable  speci- 
fication be  evolved  from  these  materials  ? 


1798.-  The  Inquiry.  |  Cowpox.'8 

/  Slackens  off  from  Horse- 
grease  Cowpox;  ascribes 

1799.  —  Further  Observations.  J  its   efficacy  to    common 

1800.  —  Continuation  of  Observations*     j  repute;  and  recommends 

escharotics  to   arrest  its 
>  virulence. 

j  Claim   of  discovery  and 

ISQl.-Origin  of  Vaccine  Inoculation.  J  ™e  of  Cowpox,  previously 
1802,-Petition  to  Parliament.  1  co^mned  as  spurious, 

and  Horsegrease  Cowpox 
\  dropped. 

By  no  ingenuity  could  a  valid  patent  be  got  out  of  these 
documents.  If  Horsegrease  Cowpox  were  selected  as  the 
basis  of  claim,  what  of  the  repudiation  of  Cowpox  ?  and 
if  Cowpox,  what  of  Horsegrease  Cowpox  ?  And  if  Horse- 
grease  Cowpox,  what  of  thp  ascription  of  its  virtue  to 
common  repute  ?  And  if  Cowpox,  was  not  the  committee 
of  the  House  of  Commons  in  1802  compelled  to  disallow 
Jenner's  claim  to  the  discovery,  and  to  define  and  limit  his 
merit  to  the  propagation  of  its  virus  from  arm  to  arm  ? 
It  was,  however,  Pearson  and  Woodville  who  first  propa- 
gated Cowpox  from  arm  to  arm:  Jenner's  start  being 
made  with  Horsegrease  Cowpox.  But  allowing  him  so 
much  credit,  it  is  nevertheless  to  be  remembered  that  it 
was  at  that  time  a  frequent  practice  to  inoculate  with 
Smallpox  from  arm  to  arm;  and  the  substitution  of  Cow- 
pox  for  Smallpox  was  a  trifle  for  which  to  pay  £10,000 
and  dissolve  in  ecstasies  of  admiration. 


208  VACCINATION. 


CHAPTER    XII. 

OBSERVATIONS   ON  THE   POSITION   IN   1802. 

ONE  of  my  medical  readers  observes — 

The  House  of  Commons  in  1802  was  committed  to  a  variety  of 
extravagances,  but,  allowing  for  these,  you  have  to  account  for  cer- 
tain evidence  that  Cowpox  had  some  influence  over  Smallpox ;  for 
you  surely  do  not  mean  to  contend  that  it  had  no  influence  over 
that  disease,  and  that  the  evidence  before  the  Committee  was  a 
uniform  tissue  of  illusion  and  delusion. 

Put  thus,  it  is  as  difficult  to  deal  with  the  objection 
as  it  is  to  prove  a  negative.  It  is  not  for  me  to  define 
the  influence  of  cowpox  over  smallpox,  but  for  those 
who  believe  in  its  prophylaxy.  I  should  argue  that  as 
ill-health  leads  to  ill-health,  and  as  corruption  breeds 
corruption,  that  inoculated  cowpox  would  generate  a 
habit  of  body  favourable  to  smallpox,  and  at  the  same 
time  tend  to  excite  and  intensify  other  forms  of  disease. 
I  would  also  ask,  What  are  the  extravagances  to  be 
allowed  for  ?  When  these  are  determined  we  may  then 
proceed  to  discuss  what  are  not  extravagant.  It  is  a 
common  form  of  evasion  to  make  a  general  confession  of 
guilt  in  order  to  avoid  the  pain  of  specific  and  explicit 
condemnation.  It  is  conceded  that  the  House  of  Commons 
in  1802  "  committed  a  variety  of  extravagances,"  and 
under  this  appearance  of  candour  the  chief  extravagance 
is  implicitly  re-asserted  and  carried  forward,  namely,  that 
inoculated  cowpox  had  an  influence  adverse  to  smallpox. 

In  the  "variety  of  extravagances,"  few,  I  suppose,  would 
hesitate  to  include  the  asserted  annual  smallpox  mortality 
of  the  United  Kingdom.  Sir  Gilbert  Blane  pronounced 
it  45,000,  while  Dr.  Lettsom  gave  it  as  36,000— a  wide 
difference  in  the  play  of  fancy!  Dr.  Lettsom,  who  claimed 
to  have  paid  much  attention  to  figures  connected  with 
smallpox,  was  pleased  to  convert  an  extreme  London 
mortality,  namely,  3000,  into  the  ordinary  mortality, 
although  in  some  years  it  fell  under  1000.  Then  estima- 
ting the  population  of  London  at  one  million,  and  the 


OBSERVATIONS  ON  THE  POSITION  IN  1802.          209 

population  of  the  United  Kingdom  as  twelve  millions, 
he  multiplied  3000  by  12,  and  evoked  the  astounding 
national  death-rate  of  36,000  annually  from  smallpox,  all 
of  whom  were  to  be  saved  by  Jenner's  prescription ! 
But  whether  he  had  taken  the  average  or  even  the 
lowest  metropolitan  mortality,  the  computation  would 
have  remained  grossly  fallacious.  London  overcrowded 
and  pestiferous,  was  no  standard  for  the  general  popula- 
tion, urban  or  rural ;  and  the  assumption  was  monstrous 
that  smallpox,  a  notoriously  sporadic  disease,  was  constant 
and  equally  diffused  over  the  land.  We  are  without 
comprehensive  vital  statistics  for  the  time  in  question, 
but  arguing  from  the  London  of  to-day  in  continual  con- 
nection with  the  provinces,  to  the  London  of  1802  in 
comparative  isolation,  what  do  we  find  ?  Why,  smallpox 
prevalent  in  London  with  little  or  no  smallpox  in  the 
country  !  In  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette  of  31st  May,  1878, 
we  read — 

The  degree  in  which  the  Smallpox  epidemic  of  the  last  seven 
years  has  been  localised  in  London  is  very  remarkable.  The 
Lancet  points  out  that  during  the  week  ending  25th  May,  51  fatal 
cases  were  registered  in  London  and  its  suburban  districts,  whereas 
not  one  was  recorded  in  any  of  the  nineteen  large  provincial  towns 
having  an  aggregate  population  about  equal  to  that  of  London. 
Since  the  beginning  of  the  year  the  fatal  cases  of  Smallpox  within 
fifteen  miles  of  Charing  Cross  have  been  1,134,  while  but  8  have 
occurred  in  the  nineteen  other  large  towns. 

We  find  similar  illustrations  of  the  sporadic  character 
of  smallpox  wherever  we  can  get  at  the  facts.  In  1874* 
there  died  in  London  735  of  smallpox,  but  not  one  in 
Birmingham ;  386  in  Liverpool,  but  not  one  in  Plymouth  ; 
347  in  Salford,  but  not  one  in  Nottingham  ;  190  in  Man- 
chester, and  but  1  in  Sheffield ;  24  in  Bristol  and  4  in 
Leeds ;  and  so  on.  What  reason  is  there  to  believe  that 
what  is  true  of  smallpox  within  our  own  experience  was 
otherwise  in  the  experience  of  our  forefathers  ? 

I  said  that  few  would  hesitate  to  include  Dr.  Lettsom's 
36,000  and  Sir  Gilbert  Blane's  45,000  among  the  extrava- 
gances of  1802,  but  I  forgot  myself.  We  have  a  National 
Health  Society  with  the  Duke  of  Westminster  for  Presi- 
14 


210  VACCINATION. 


dent  and  all  manner  of  notables,  aristocratic,  philanthro- 
pic, scientific,  and  literary,  among  its  committee  and 
members.  Now  this  Society  issues  a  hand-bill  of  advices 
and  warnings  relating  to  smallpox,  approved  too  by  the 
Local  Government  Board,  and  there  we  find  set  forth  as 
unquestionable  matter  of  fact — 

"  Before  the  introduction  of  Vaccination  Smallpox  'killed  40,000 
persons  yearly  in  this  country." 

We  thus  see  how  hard  it  is  for  a  convenient  fable  to 
die,  even  when  known  to  be  false,  and  how  respectable 
people  will  keep  repeating  it  as  long  as  they  fancy  it  is 
for  good. 

Absurd  as  was  the  extension  of  the  ratio  of  London 
smallpox  to  the  populations  of  the  United  Kingdom,  of 
Europe,  and  of  the  world,  the  London  disease  itself 
afforded  little  warrant  for  the  extreme  terms  of  horror 
and  dismay  with  which  it  was  described.  Smallpox  did 
not  increase  the  death-rate  of  London :  when  smallpox 
was  most  prevalent  and  least  prevalent,  the  total  mor- 
tality was  but  slightly  affected.  As  long  as  the  sanitary 
conditions  of  the  great  city  remained  unchanged,  fevers 
replaced  smallpox  and  smallpox  replaced  fevers,  and 
whether  deaths  were  from  one  form  of  disease  or  another, 
so  that  the  people  died  the  same,  what  did  it  matter  ? 
Smallpox  when  most  prevalent  was  never  accountable 
for  much  more  than  10  per  cent,  of  the  total  London 
mortality,  and  in  some  years  for  less  than  3  per  cent. ; 
and  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  the  larger  portion  of 
that  mortality  was  infantile  mortality — smallpox  being 
in  the  great  majority  of  cases  a  disease  of  the  young  ; 
none  the  less  objectionable  on  that  account,  but  less 
chargeable  than  some  other  forms  of  zymotic  disease 
with  striking  down  the  adult  bread-winner  and  enlarg- 
ing misery  and  pauperism. 

Again,  in  much  of  the  talk  about  smallpox,  it  was 
assumed  that  the  disease  had  no  limits — that  it  was 
something  like  fire,  and  might  spread  to  any  extent  if 
unchecked.  But  what  was  there  to  justify  such  an 
assumption  ?  Assuredly  nothing  in  London  experience. 


OBSERVATIONS  ON  THE  POSITION  IN  1802.          211 

Smallpox  was  always  present  in  London,  waxing  and 
waning  under  some  unknown  law ;  the  deaths  rising  as 
high  as  3992  in  1772  and  falling  as  low  as  522  in  1797— 
the  extremes  of  the  century.  Why  did  4000  never  die 
in  any  year,  or  7000,  or  10,000  ?  When  a  fire  is  extin- 
guished, we  know  it  has  met  with  a  check ;  and  if  small- 
pox caused  3992  deaths  in  1772  and  522  in  1797,  and 
smallpox  be  like  fire,  there  was,  we  see,  a  check  ;  and  I 
ask,  What  was  that  check  ?  There  may  be  answers,  but 
none  for  unreserved  acceptance.  What  is  certain  is,  that 
in  London  smallpox  was  never  an  illimitable  affliction. 
It  had  limits,  and  it  was  only  in  the  rhetoric  of  alarmists 
that  it  had  none. 

And  the  check  to  the  disease  (whatever  it  was)  lay  in 
the  bodies  of  the  citizens,  and  not  in  their  therapeutics. 
Isolation  was  rarely  attempted,  and  in  their  crowded 
habitations  was  impracticable.  Moreover  they  had  not 
only  the  smallpox  appropriate  to  their  evil  conditions  to 
contend  with,  but  the  disease  as  propagated  and  diffused 
by  the  inoculators.  What  we  have  to  say  is,  that  whilst 
in  the  London  of  last  century  we  behold  smallpox  en- 
demic and  cultivated,  yet  in  no  year  did  the  mortality 
therefrom  exceed  4,000 ;  and  iurther,  that  with  so  much 
to  favour  and  stimulate  the  disease  it  was  a  diminishing 
quantity.  In  the  words  of  Dr.  Farr — 

London  Smallpox  attained  its  maximum  mortality  after  inocula- 
tion was  introduced,  and  the  disease  began  to  grow  less  fatal  before 
vaccination  was  discovered. 

We  shall  see  as  we  proceed  how  the  natural  check  to 
smallpox  (whatever  it  was),  the  immunity  of  the  majority 
from  infection,  and  the  decline  of  the  disease  were  all 
claimed  as  the  blessed  results  of  Jenner's  prescription ; 
and  now-a-days  it  has  passed  into  common-place,  for 
which  evidence  is  thought  superfluous,  that  without  that 
prescription  smallpox  might  have  illimitable  extension. 
If  anywhere  a  variolous  epidemic  is  slight,  it  is  said  that 
but  for  vaccination  it  would  have  been  severe ;  and  if 
severe,  that  its  intensity  would  have  been  doubled  or 
trebled  save  for  the  action  of  the  same  prophylactic. 


212  VACCINATION. 


We  have  a  remarkable  illustration  of  this  style  of 
prophecy  in  the  Report  of  the  Select  Committee  of  the 
House  of  Commons  upon  the  Vaccination  Act  of  1867, 
dated  23rd  May,  1871,  where  we  read — 

Smallpox  unchecked  by  Vaccination,  is  one  of  the  most  terrible 
and  destructive  of  all  diseases  as  regards  the  danger  of  infection, 
the  proportion  of  deaths  among  those  attacked,  and  the  permanent 
injury  to  the  survivors. 

Your  Committee  believe  that  if  Vaccination  had  not  been  general, 
the  epidemic  [then  prevalent]  would  have  become  a  pestilence, 
raging  with  the  destructive  force  of  the  Plague  of  the  middle  ages. 

What  is  beyond  evidence  is  beyond  refutation ;  and 
the  imaginations  of  M.P.'s,  dull  though  they  be,  not 
unfrequently  prevail  over  their  intelligence. 

To  set  aside  the  mass  of  testimony  adduced  by  Jen- 
ner's  friends  before  the  Commons'  Committee  in  1802  is 
sometimes  described  as  a  hopeless  undertaking ;  but  the 
answer  to  such  a  boast  is,  that  experience  has  nullified 
the  essential  part  of  that  testimony,  and  that  there  is 
little  left  to  account  for.  No  well-informed  medical 
practitioner  now  believes  what  the  Committee  was  led 
to  believe,  that  to  be  inoculated  with  cowpox  was  to  be 
secure  from  smallpox  for  life.  The  security,  where  still 
credited,  is  subject  to  so  many  qualifications  that  the 
primitive  inoculators  with  cowpox  would  have  thought 
such  protection  not  worth  paying  for,  still  less  of  exult- 
ing over  as  the  greatest  discovery  ever  made  in  medicine. 
Nor  would  many  now  admit  the  validity  of  the  Vario- 
lous  Test  which  then  carried  conviction  with  irresistible 
force.  Inoculation  with  smallpox  was  in  itself  an  uncer- 
tain operation,  and  that  it  should  fail  after  inoculation 
with  cowpox,  ere  the  poisoning  of  the  blood  had  been 
worked  off,  was  in  nowise  surprising.  The  exposure  of 
vaccinated  subjects  to  smallpox  infection  was  in  like 
manner  deceptive ;  and  it  was  conveniently  forgotten 
that  all  manner  of  people  were  exposed  to  contagion  with 
impunity  in  the  usual  circumstances  of  life.  Taking  a 
year  of  exceptional  smallpox  in  London,  such  as  Dr. 
Lettsom  set  forth  as  ordinary,  when  18,000  were  affected 


OBSERVATIONS  ON  THE  POSITION  IN  1802.          213 

and  8000  died  (that  is  one  in  six),  there  were  in  the 
million  of  inhabitants  982,000  who  escaped.  How  did 
they  escape  ?  A  multitude  must  have  come  into  imme- 
diate contact  with  the  sick  :  How  did  they  remain  un- 
scathed ?  The  question  is  simple,  but  it  is  crucial.  If 
smallpox  were  like  fire,  and  men,  women,  and  children 
like  fuel,  why  did  not  all  burn  ?  Under  what  prophy- 
laxy did  they  abide  secure  ?  Again  in  this  connection, 
we  must  not  lose  sight  of  the  magic  of  faith.  Things 
being  equal,  two  persons  exposed  to  smallpox,  one  con- 
fident that  he  was  invulnerable  through  vaccination,  and 
the  other  apprehensive  of  danger,  the  chances  are,  that 
the  fearful  would  be  attacked  whilst  the  fearless  would 
have  his  faith  justified  in  immunity. 

In  considerations  thus  obvious  it  is  not  difficult  to 
understand  how  the  testimony  delivered  to  the  Commit- 
tee had  a  semblance  as  of  veracious  Nature.  Any  one 
who  has  studied  the  history  of  remedies,  or  the  various 
quackeries  within  his  own  observation,  will  know  how 
easy  it  is  to  conjure  up  testimony,  with  asseverations 
presumptuous  to  question,  whicfy.  by-and-by  are  gradually 
discredited  and  ultimately  disappear  in  forge tfulness.  I 
have,  therefore,  no  disposition  to  be  hard  on  the  men  of 
1802.  From  our  vantage  of  experience  we  see  how  they 
were  led  astray,  and  recognise  the  pressure  of  the  influ- 
ences under  which  they  acted.  Moreover  a  remedy  that 
bore  the  promise  of  relief  from  the  pest  of  smallpox 
inoculation  came  with  strong  seduction.  What  a  pest 
that  inoculation  was,  how  it  was  loathed,  and  how  it  was 
submitted  to  under  the  persuasion  of  duty  are  written 
at  large  in  the  domestic  memoirs  of  last  century.  Every 
mother  among  the  upper  and  middle  classes  was  per- 
suaded that  it  was  necessary  for  her  children  to  undergo 
the  variolous  ordeal — an  ordeal  that  involved  the  delib- 
erate introduction  of  smallpox  into  her  household.  It 
was  hateful,  it  was  intolerable,  and  yet  it  had  to  be 
endured !  The  doctors  minimised  the  risks  to  the  utter- 
most, but  what  they  really  believed  plainly  appeared 
when  vaccination  presented  itself  as  an  alternative. 


214 


VACCINATION. 


Then  smallpox  inoculation  was  denounced  by  its  former 
practitioners  with  a  fervour  that  contrasted  painfully 
with  their  antecedent  professions ;  whilst  parents  heard 
with  indescribable  satisfaction  that  absolute  life-long 
security  from  smallpox  was  henceforward  insured  at  the 
price  of  a  trifling  operation  attended  by  no  peril  what- 
ever, and  with  distinct  benefit  to  health.  To  make  the 
contrast  clear  I  subjoin  copy  of  a  hand-bill  that  was 
posted  on  walls  and  circulated  by  thousands  in  London 
and  the  country  at  the  time  of  which  I  write,  1801-2. 


A  TABLE  SHEWING  THE  ADVANTAGES  OF 
VACCINE  INOCULATION. 


The  Natural 
Smallpox. 

I.  The  natural  Small- 
pox is  a  loathsome,  in- 
fectious, painful,  and 
fatal  disease.       It  is 
confined  to  no  climate, 
but    rages     in    every 
quarter  of  the  world, 
and  destroys  a  tenth 
part  of  mankind. 

II.  Those  who  sur- 
vive the  ravages  of  that 
dreadful  distemper, 
often  survive  only  to 
be  the  victims  of  other 
maladies,    or  to   drag 
out  a  miserable  exist- 
ence worse  than  death. 

III.  This  cruel  and 
lamentable      disorder 
leaves  behind  it  pits, 
scars,  and  other  blem- 
ishes  and   bodily   de- 
formities   which    em- 
bitter life. 


The  Inoculated 
Smallpox. 

I.  The    inoculated 
Smallpox  also  is  loath- 
some, infectious^,  pain- 
ful,   a"nd   sometimes 
fatal ;  and,  when  par- 
tially adopted;  spreads 
the  contagion,  and  in- 
creases the  mortality 
of  the  disease.     &f 

II.  It  sometimes 
occasions    the    same 
maladies  as  the  natural 
Smallpox. 


III.  It  frequently 
leaves  behind  it  the 
same  blemishes  and 
deformities  as  the  na- 
tural Smallpox,  which 
are  the  more  deplorable 
as  they  are  brought  on 
by  a  voluntary  act. 


The  Inoculated 
Cowpock. 

I.  The    inoculated 
Cowpock  scarcely  de- 
serves the  name  of  a 
disease.     It  is  not  in- 
fectious;   and,  in  the 
opinion  of  the  most  ex- 
perienced practitioners 
has  never  proved  fatal. 

II.  It  occasions  no 
other  disease.     On  the 
contrary,  it  has  often 
been  known  to  improve 
health,  and  to  remedy 
those    diseases   under 
which  the  patient  be- 
fore laboured. 

III.  It  leaves  be- 
hind no  blemish,  but  a 
Blessing — one   of    the 
greatest  ever  bestowed 
on  man — a  perfect  sec- 
urity against  the  future 
infection  of  the  Small- 
pox. 


From  this  faithful  statement  of  the  advantages  attending  VACCINE 
INOCULATION,  it  must  appear  evident  to  every  unprejudiced  person, 
that  it  is  the  duty  as  well  as  the  interest  of  every  parent,  of  every 
individual,  and  of  every  nation,  to  adopt  the  practice,  and  to  hasten 

THE  EXTERMINATION  OF  THE  SMALLPOX. 


OBSERVATIONS  ON  THE  POSITION  IN  1802.         215 

It  was  thus  that  Vaccination  was  introduced  to  the 
English  people,  not  by  men  accounted  quacks,  but  by 
leaders  of  the  medical  profession;  and  whatever  the 
illusions  and  mischiefs  of  the  new  practice,  we  must 
allow  it  the  credit  of  discouraging  and  ultimately  super- 
seding the  grosser  practice  of  inoculation  with  smallpox. 
As  for  the  various  items  in  the  bill,  we  have  had,  and 
shall  have  them  before  us,  and  I  would  only  now  recall 
attention  to  the  initial  statement  that  "  Smallpox  de- 
stroys a  tenth  part  of  mankind."  The  summary  answer 
to  the  statement  is  that  the  number  of  mankind  was 
unknown,  likewise  their  diseases,  and  the  proportion  in 
which  they  were  fatal.  It  was  a  repetition  of  Dr.  Lett- 
som's  unwarrantable  extension  of  a  bad  year  of  London 
smallpox  to  the  whole  earth.  Even  in  an  occasional 
year  when  upwards  of  3000  died  in  London  of  smallpox, 
the  total  average  mortality  was  not  seriously  affected 
thereby.  The  deaths,  as  we  have  observed,  were  merely 
taken  out  in  smallpox  instead  of  in  some  other  form  of 
fever.  That  nothing  can  permanently  reduce  the  death- 
rate  of  any  community  save  improved  sanitary  conditions 
and  personal  habits  was  unrevealed  in  1802. 

Notwithstanding  the  exultation  over  Jenner,  "  the 
saviour  of  the  world  from  smallpox,"  and  over  "the 
greatest  discovery  since  the  creation  of  man,"  the  sus- 
picion is  unavoidable  that  it  was  largely  factitious — 
"  from  the  teeth  outwards,"  as  Carlyle  would  have  said. 
The  vote  of  £10,000  to  the  miraculous  benefactor  of  the 
human  race  was  carried  by  a  majority  of  three  in  a  Par- 
liament to  which  no  more  than  115  members  could  be 
whipped  up,  and  neither  Pitt  or  Fox  thought  it  worth 
while  to  be  present.  Nor  was  Jenner  treated  as  if  his 
asserted  services  to  mankind  were  soberly  credited. 
"  Yes,"  it  may  be  said,  "  the  world  never  recognises  its 
true  benefactors ; "  but  the  observation  does  not  apply, 
for  Jenner  was  profusely  recognised,  and  received  praise 
from  his  contemporaries  which  posterity  hesitates  to 
repeat.  Nevertheless  the  praise,  though  profuse,  was 
little  more  than  verbal.  Some  expressed  indignation  at 


216  VACCINATION. 


the  paltry  award  of  £10,000,  and  proposed  to  start  a 
national  subscription,  but  no  one  took  the  initiative,  and 
the  national  gratitude  was  not  put  to  the  test.  Even 
the  £10,000  was  paid  tardily.  Writing  to  a  friend  on 
3rd  June,  1804,  Jenner  had  to  relate  that — 

The  Treasury  still  withholds  the  payment  of  what  was  voted  to 
me  two  years  ago ;  and  now  there  are  new  officers,  and  it  may  yet 
be  very  long  before  a  guinea  reaches  me  from  that  quarter. 

When  at  last  the  money  was  paid,  nearly  £1000  was 
deducted  for  fees,  etc. ;  and,  having  the  repute  of  the 
money,  he  was  considered  public  property.  As  Dr. 
Baron  records — 

The  people  of  England  seemed  to  think  that  the  fee-simple  of 
his  body  and  mind  had  been  purchased  by  the  TEN  THOUSAND 
POUNDS  ;  and  many  an  unjust  and  ungenerous  intimation  of  this 
feeling  was  conveyed  to  him.  To  a  mind  like  his,  this  was  no 
small  annoyance.  He  was  called  upon  for  explanations  and 
opinions  by  every  person  who  thought  a  direct  communication 
with  the  Author  of  Vaccination  an  honour  worth  seeking,  while 
they  might  have  obtained  all  the  information  they  wanted  in  his 
published  writings. 

So  much  was  matter  of  course,  but  Jenner  had  worse 
to  encounter.  He  took  the  fine  talk  of  his  medical  and 
political  friends  au  serieux,  bade  farewell  to  Berkeley, 
and  set  up  as  London  physician  in  Hertford  Street,  May 
Fair.  The  result  we  have  in  his  own  words — 

Elated  and  allured  by  the  speech  of  the  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer, I  took  a  house  in  London  for  ten  years,  at  a  high  rent, 
and  furnished  it ;  but  my  first  year's  practice  convinced  me  of  my 
own  temerity  and  imprudence,  and  the  falsity  of  the  Minister's 
prediction.  My  fees  fell  off  both  in  number  and  value  ;  for,  extra- 
ordinary to  tell,  some  of  those  families  in  which  I  had  been  before 
employed,  now  sent  to  their  own  domestic  surgeons  or  apothecaries 
to  inoculate  their  children,  alleging  that  they  could  not  think  of 
troubling  Dr.  Jenner  about  a  thing  executed  so  easily  as  vaccine 
inoculation.  Others,  who  gave  me  such  fees  as  I  thought  myself 
entitled  to  at  the  first  inoculation,  reduced  them  at  the  second,  and 
sank  them  still  lower  at  the  third. 

His  fees  did  not  amount  to  £350  a  year,  and  he 
presently  found  himself  nothing  the  better  for  the  par- 


OBSERVATIONS  ON  THE  POSITION  IN  1802.          217 

liamentary  grant,  and  involved  in  grave  financial  diffi- 
culties.    He  wrote  to  a  friend,  2nd  November,  1804 — 

The  London  smoke  is  apt  to  cloud  our  best  faculties.  I  do  not 
intend  to  risk  the  injury  of  mine  in  this  way,  unless  occasionally 
for  the  transaction  of  business.  The  public  has  not  the  smallest 
right  to  require  such  a  sacrifice  of  me.  I  have  received  no  reward 
for  showing  them  how  to  remove  one  of  the  greatest  obstacles  to 
human  happiness ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  am  loaded  with  a  tax  of 
more  than  .£400  a  year ! 

And  to  another  correspondent — 

I  have  now  completely  made  up  my  mind  respecting  London. 
I  have  done  with  it,  and  have  again  commenced  as  village  doctor. 
I  found  my  purse  not  equal  to  the  sinking  of  a  .£1000  annually 
(which  has  actually  been  the  case  for  several  successive  years)  nor 
the  gratitude  of  the  public  deserving  such  a  sacrifice.  How  hard 
after  what  I  have  done,  the  toils  I  have  gone  through,  and  the 
anxieties  I  have  endured  in  obtaining  for  the  world  a  greater  gift 
than  man  ever  bestowed  on  the  world  before  (excuse  this  burst  of 
egotism),  to  be  thrown  by  with  a  bare  remuneration  of  my 
expenses. 

It  was  hard !  People  who  attributed  to  Jenner  the 
greatest  discovery  ever  made,  the  preservation  of  from 
36,000  to  45,000  lives  annually  in  the  United  Kingdom, 
and  the  salvation  of  the  human  race  from  smallpox,  were 
indeed  entitled  to  have  dealt  with  him  more  handsomely. 
He  had  sympathisers  and  candid  friends.  "  Your  liber- 
ality and  disinterestedness  every  one  must  admire," 
wrote  Mr.  Benjamin  Travers,  "  but  you  are  sadly 
deficient  in  worldly  wisdom.  If  you  had  undertaken 
the  extinction  of  the  smallpox  yourself,  with  coadjutors 
of  your  own  appointment,  I  am  confident,  you  might 
have  put  £100,000  in  your  pocket ;  and  the  glory  would 
have  been  as  great  and  the  benefit  to  the  community  the 
same."  How  that  £100,000  was  used  to  tantalise  him  ! 
and  yet,  as  Dr.  Pearson  pointed  out,  never  any  one 
showed  on  what  practicable  terms  the  immense  sum 
could  have  been  earned  by  means  of  cowpox. 


218  VACCINATION. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

THE   ROYAL  JENNERIAN   SOCIETY. 

JENNER,  jealous  of  Pearson,  was  anxious  to  supersede 
the  Institution  for  the  Inoculation  of  the  Vaccine  Pock 
established  by  him  in  1799 ;  but  Jenner  was  what  Scots 
call  "  a  feckless  creature,"  whose  wishes  rarely  issue  in 
fruit.  After  his  success  in  Parliament,  he  did  not  remain 
in  London  to  improve  his  opportunities,  but  retreated 
to  domestic  quiet  at  Berkeley  and  Cheltenham.  His 
friends,  however,  were  mindful  of  him,  and  Dr.  Hawes, 
Mr.  Addington,  surgeon,  Benjamin  Travers,  and  Joseph 
Leaper  met  in  Queen  Street,  City,  3rd  December,  1802, 
and  resolved  to  establish  a  "  JENNERIAN  SOCIETY  for  the 
Extinction  of  the  Small-Pox."  Mr.  Addington  trans- 
mitted the  resolution  of  the  meeting  to  Jenner,  saying — 

We  look  to  your  direction  and  assistance,  and  feel  very  desirous 
of  knowing  when  it  is  probable  we  may  have  the  pleasure  of  seeing 
you  in  town. 

Joseph  Fox  of  Lombard  Street,  dentist  and  enthusiastic 
promoter  of  the  new  inoculation,  also  wrote  to  him,  4th 
December,  soliciting  his  co-operation — 

The  plan  which  is  in  agitation  is  of  the  most  extensive  and 
liberal  kind.  It  is  even  expected  that  the  Koyal  countenance  will 
be  gained  ;  but  much  depends  upon  thee.  All  are  looking  toward 
thee  as  the  proper  person  to  lay  the  foundation-stone.  It  would  be 
well  if  this  could  be  done  in  the  course  of  the  present  year,  par- 
ticularly as  it  is  the  memorable  time  when  the  practice  received 
parliamentary  sanction. 

But  the  ease-loving  Jenner  was  not  to  be  drawn.  He 
wrote  to  Mr.  Addington  from  Berkeley,  10th  December, 
1802— 

Your  very  obliging  letter  found  me  just  returned  with  my  wife 
and  children  to  our  pleasant  home,  where  I  promised  myself  a  few 
weeks  of  domestic  comfort  after  some  years  spent  in  constant 
anxieties. 

This  is  the  pull  on  one  side.  On  the  other  is  the  delightful 
prospect  held  up  to  my  view  of  an  Establishment  for  the  promo- 
tion of  Universal  Vaccine  Inoculation — an  establishment  to  which 
I  have  for  years  been  looking  forward  with  a  longing  eye. 


THE  ROYAL  JENNERIAN  SOCIETY.  219 

I  need  not  go  farther  into  explanation,  and  shall  only  say,  that 
if  it  be  incompatible  with  the  generous  design  to  suffer  me  to 
remain  here  for  the  time  I  had  allowed  myself,  I  will  certainly 
comply  with  the  wishes  of  my  friends  and  go  to  town.  Yet  it  must 
be  observed  that  I  humbly  conceive  and  ardently  hope  that  my 
presence  will  not  be  absolutely  necessary.  I  have  written  to  my 
friend  Dr.  Lettsom  and  requested  him  to  have  the  kindness  to  be 
(as  far  as  such  a  thing  is  admissible)  my  representative.  In  his 
judgment  on  the  present  occasion  I  can  place  every  confidence. 

The  letter  describes  the  man.  He  did  not  like  to  be 
troubled — not  even  when  action  stood  for  the  advance- 
ment of  his  own  glory.  As  Pearson  observed,  "  If  Vac- 
cination had  been  left  to  Jenner,  it  would  never  have 
come  to  anything."  Benjamin  Travers  also  wrote  to  him 
at  the  same  time  urging  the  necessity  of  his  presence  in 
London,  but  he  was  put  off  with  similar  excuses  and  with 
expectations  of  assistance  from  the  public  purse — 

Government,  I  have  no  doubt,  will  give  due  support  to  so  just 
and  laudable  an  undertaking.  I  am  warranted  in  this  suggestion 
by  a  long  conversation  I  had  with  Mr.  Abbott,  Speaker  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  who  said  that  after  the  investigation  of  the 
Parliamentary  Committee  he  thought  it  tkcame  a  public  duty  to 
form  Institutions  for  Gratuitous  Inoculation. 

As  Jenner  was  not  to  be  had,  the  promoters  set  to 
work  without  him,  and  their  triumph  was  complete  when 
at  a  meeting  in  the  London  Tavern  on  17th  February, 
1803,  it  was  announced  that  his  Majesty  had  graciously 
condescended  to  become  the  patron  of  "THE  ROYAL 
JENNERIAN  SOCIETY  for  the  Extermination  of  the  Small- 
pox:" that  her  Majesty  had  with  great  benignity 
acquiesced  in  the  request  to  become  patroness :  that  his 
Royal  Highness  the  Prince  of  Wales  and  their  Royal 
Highnesses  the  Duke  of  York,  the  Duke  of  Clarence,  and 
the  Duke  of  Cumberland,  had  evinced,  in  a  most  flatter- 
ing manner,  their  willingness  to  accept  the  office  of 
vice-patrons :  that  his  Grace  the  Duke  of  Bedford  had 
consented  to  fill  the  office  of  president ;  and  that  many 
prelates,  noblemen,  and  gentlemen  of  the  highest  rank 
and  respectability  had  agreed  to  be  vice-presidents  of  the 
Society. 

The  approval  of  the  Prince  of  Wales  was  conveyed  in 


220  VACCINATION. 


a  letter  of  the  Earl  of  Egremont,  over  which  Baron, 
Jenner's  biographer  (writing  when  the  Prince  had  blos- 
somed into  George  IV.),  bursts  into  worship  in  capitals, 
as  follows — 

The  gracious  and  beneficent  mind  of  the  Illustrious  writer  is  dis- 
played in  every  line  ;  and  the  whole  is  truly  characteristic  of  those 
great  qualities  which  continue  to  add  lustre  to  his  still  more 
EXALTED  STATION  and  shed  so  much  of  real  glory  on  his  EEIGN. 

Subscriptions  flowed  in  freely.  The  Corporation  of 
London  gave  £500,  the  East  India  Company  £100,  the 
Duke  of  Bedford  £50,  and  guineas  ten,  five,  two  and  one 
were  contributed  with  a  liberality  that  attested  the 
fervour  of  the  common  credulity.  But  it  was  much 
easier  to  get  money  than  to  administer  it  with  a  nice 
adjustment  of  means  to  ends.  The  Jennerians,  too,  were 
over-organised.  There  were  a  Medical  Council  and  a 
Board  of  Directors.  The  Medical  Council  consisted  of 
twenty-five  Physicians  and  twenty-two  Surgeons  of  the 
first  eminence  in  London,  with  Jenner  for  president 
and  Lettsom  for  vice-president.  Such  mechanism  could 
never  work,  and  at  the  point  where  real  business  was  to 
be  transacted,  an  officer  was  selected  of  extraordinary 
character. 

John  Walker  was  born  at  Cockermouth  in  1759,  and 
was  a  school-fellow  of  Woodville,  subsequently  physician 
to  the  London  Smallpox  Hospital.  After  a  rambling 
career  as  blacksmith,  engraver,  and  school-master,  he 
turned  his  attention  to  medicine,  graduated  at  Ley  den, 
associated  with  French  revolutionists  in  the  guise  of  a 
member  of  the  Society  of  Friends ;  then  accompanied 
Dr.  Marshall  in  a  vaccinating  cruise  to  the  Mediterranean, 
from  whence,  after  a  variety  of  adventures  in  war  and 
weather,  he  appeared  in  London  in  1802,  habited  as  a 
Quaker  with  a  long  beard — an  apparition  in  a  clean 
shaven  community.  Joseph  Fox,  the  dentist  of  Lombard 
Street,  gave  him  the  use  of  a  part  of  his  house,  and  there, 
in  his  own  words,  "I  set  up  my  VACCINIUM  for  the 
glorious  cause."  As  soon  as  the  Jennerian  Society  was 
initiated,  Walker  was  put  forward  by  Joseph  Fox  and 


THE  ROYAL  JENNERIAN  SOCIETY.  221 

other  Friends  as  inoculator-in-chief,  and  Walker  made 
application  in  the  following  terms— 

To  THE  JENNERIAN  SOCIETY. 

Friends, — Perhaps  there  is  not  any  individual  who  has  greater 
reason  to  be  gratified  with  the  interest  ye  are  taking  in  the  Vacciole 
Inoculation  than  myself. 

Of  late  years,  the  practice  of  it  has  been  the  chief  business  of  my 
life,  and  I  am  partly  indebted,  during  some  of  the  last  months,  to 
the  zeal  of  individual  members  of  your  Society  for  being  enabled 
to  continue  it.  They  have  sent  patients  to  me  from  remote  and 
distant  parts  of  this  extensive  City,  when,  for  want  of  notoriety,  I 
might  otherwise  have  been  unemployed. 

May  I  offer  to  you  my  services  in  this  way  :  during  the  infancy 
of  your  Institution,  you  cannot  do  me  a  greater  pleasure  than  to 
increase  my  number  of  patients ;  for  where  I  now  vacciolate  tens, 
I  could  easily  do  the  same  for  hundreds. 

After  this  declaration,  I  hope  you  will  consider  the  present 
address  as  neither  unseasonable  nor  intrusive,  but  rather  as  a 
mark  of  unwavering  zeal  in  the  happy  cause  in  which  ye  are  now 
embarking. 

Respectfully, 

JOHN  WALKER. 

54  Lombard  Street,  29.  xii.,  1802. 

When  the  day  of  election  arrived,  four,  out  of  many, 
were  selected  as  candidates,  one  of  them  being  Dr. 
Domeier,  a  German,  strongly  recommended  by  the  Queen 
and  Prince  of  Wales;  but  the  Friends  stood  by  their 
man,  and  Dr.  Walker  was  appointed  Kesident  Inoculator 
at  the  Central  House  of  the  Society  in  Salisbury  Square 
with  a  salary  of  £200  a  year,  coal  and  candles,  and  liberty 
to  take  fees  for  private  "  vacciolation." 

The  promoters  of  the  Society,  operating  under  the 
prestige  of  Jenner's  name,  resolved  to  hold  their  annual 
festival  on  his  birthday,  the  17th  of  May ;  and  at  the 
first  dinner  in  1803  he  was  subjected  to  flatteries  enough 
to  turn  any  man's  head  who  does  not  know  the  reckless 
insincerity  that  prevails  on  such  occasions.  It  was  the 
adulation  connected  with  the  formation  of  this  Society 
that  as  much  as  anything  induced  Jenner  to  set  up  as 
west-end  physician.  The  attempt  of  the  middle-aged 
country  doctor  was  the  occasion  of  much  grim  humour, 
and  his  consequent  embarassments  were  the  concern  of 


222  VACCINATION. 


his  friends  for  many  a  day.  Apart  from  the  inherent 
difficulties  of  the  enterprise  (social  rather  than  medical) 
Jenner  was  constitutionally  deficient  in  method  and 
assiduity.  Wrapped  up  in  his  wife  and  family,  business 
was  always  set  aside  when  they  claimed  his  affectionate 
regard ;  and  to  leave  London  for  Gloucestershire  for  some 
domestic  cause  was  in  his  eyes  procedure  that  required 
no  defence — all  which  might  be  amiable,  but  it  constantly 
annoyed  and  frustrated  his  associates ;  and  it  is  not  thus 
encumbered  that  any  man  can  expect  to  make  way  in  the 
world.  When  the  anniversary  in  1804  came  round,  Jenner 
was  at  Berkeley,  and  when  pressed  to  attend  he  wrote — 

Though  a  post-chaise  might  bring  up  my  body,  my  mind  would 
be  left  behind.  One  cause  of  my  absence,  among  many  others,  is 
the  sad  state  of  Mrs.  Jenner's  health.  I  cannot  leave  her  even  for 
a  day  with  any  comfort  to  my  feelings.  My  friends,  who  honour 
the  glorious  cause  of  Vaccination  by  assembling  on  the  17th,  will, 
I  trust,  admit  my  apology.  It  is  my  intention  to  collect  a  few 
staunch  Vaccinists  on  that  day  at  my  cottage.  I  shall  give  them 
some  roast  beef,  not  forgetting  a  horn  or  two  of  good  October. 
We  shall  close  the  day  with  bumpers  of  milk-punch  to  the  health 
of  the  Friends  of  Humanity  at  the  Crown  and  Anchor ;  and  if  it  were 
not  for  the  indisposition  of  my  poor  wife,  we  should  roar  like  bulls. 

If  Jenner  was  idle  and  self-indulgent,  Walker  was  the 
reverse.  He  was  a  fine  specimen  of  the  GENUS,  Fanatic. 
Possessed  with  a  lust  for  what  he  called  Vacciolation,  he 
had  a  brow  of  brass,  nerves  of  steel,  and  habits  like  clock- 
work. Thirteen  stations  were  opened  in  London  where 
cowpox  was  inoculated  gratis,  and  in  eighteen  months 
Walker  was  able  to  announce  that  12,288  patients  had 
been  operated  on,  and  that  19,352  charges  of  virus  had 
been  dispatched  to  the  country  and  foreign  parts;  whereon 
Baron  observes — 

The  effect  of  these  exertions  was  immediately  perceived  by  a 
striking  diminution  of  the  number  of  deaths  from  smallpox  within 
the  Bills  of  Mortality.  In  1803  they  amounted  to  1173 ;  in  1804  they 
were  only  622.  The  contrast  will  appear  still  greater  when  it  is 
considered  that  the  deaths  amounted  to  2409  in  the  year  1800 ;  and 
that  the  annual  average  of  deaths  for  fifty  years  previously  was 
2018.* 

*  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  Vol.  i.  p.  577. 


THE  ROYAL  JENNERIAN  SOCIETY. 


223 


The  passage  is  noteworthy  as  representative  of  many 
similar  passages  in  the  literature  of  Vaccination.  It  might 
be  described  as  dishonest,  but  the  craft  is  so  transparent 
that  the  epithet  would  be  extravagant.  The  probable 
explanation  is,  that  Vaccination  had  come  to  be  regarded 
as  so  unquestionably  beneficial  that  anything  might  be 
asserted  in  its  favour,  and  that  anything  was  true.  Else 
a  child  might  have  asked  how  12,000  or  24,000  vaccina- 
tions could  by  any  possibility  affect  an  immediate  diminu- 
tion in  the  deaths  from  smallpox  in  a  population  of  eight 
or  nine  hundred  thousand.  Baron  would  also  lead  his 
readers  to  suppose  that  the  low  mortality  of  1 804,  namely 
622,  was  unexampled,  though  with  the  Bills  of  Mortality 
before  him,  he  might  have  seen  that  the  deaths  in  1797 
fell  to  522 ;  and  he  knew  that  the  low  figure  of  1804 
was  not  maintained,  but  rose  to  1685  in  1805.  But  as 
remarked,  any  statement,  if  only  it  be  favourable  to 
Vaccination,  is  expected  to  pass  muster  as  veracious,  and 
the  public  credulity  justifies  the  expectation. 

Let  us  look  at  the  London  Bills  for  ourselves,  taking 
the  last  ten  years  of  the  18th  and  the  first  ten  years  of 
the  19th  Centuries,  and  try  to  discover  what  they  teach. 


Burials  from 

From 

From 

From 

Years. 

all  Diseases. 

Smallpox. 

Fevers. 

Measle 

1791 

18,760 

1747 

2013 

156 

1792 

20,213 

1568 

2236 

450 

1793 

21,749 

2382 

2426 

248 

1794 

19,241 

1913 

1935 

172 

1795 

21,179 

1040 

1947 

328 

1796 

19,288 

3548 

1547 

307 

1797 

17,014 

522 

1526 

222 

1798 

18,155 

2237 

1754 

196 

1799 

18,134 

1111 

1784 

233 

1800 

23,068 

2409 

2712 

395 

196,801  18,477  19,880  2707 

It  is  to  be  observed,  that  we  have  not  here  the  record 
of  the  deaths  in  the  whole  of  London,  but  merely  the 
number  of  intramural  interments,  which  diminished  as  a 
number  of  graveyards  became  gorged  beyond  capacity  of 
decomposition  and  assimilation,  and  relief  was  sought  in 


224 


VACCINATION. 


the  cemeteries  of  extra-mural  parishes,  such  as  St.  Pancras 
and  Marylebone.  It  is  only  thus  that  the  diminishing 
number  of  burials  (which  ranged  from  25,000  to  30,000 
during  many  years  of  the  18th  Century)  is  to  be  account- 
ed for.  In  this  light  we  have  to  consider  the  following 
table,  where  we  note  fewer  burials,  less  smallpox,  less 
fevers,  but  more  measles. 


Burials  from 

From 

From 

From 

Years. 

all  Diseases. 

Smallpox. 

Fevers. 

Measles 

1801       . 

19,374 

1461 

2908 

36 

1802       . 

19,379 

1579 

2201 

559 

1803       . 

19,582 

1202 

2326 

438 

1804       . 

17,038 

622 

1702 

619 

1805       . 

17,565 

1685 

1307 

523 

1806       . 

17,938 

1158 

1354 

530 

1807       . 

18,334 

1297 

1033 

452 

1808       . 

19,954 

1169 

1168 

1386 

1809       . 

16,680 

1163 

1066 

106 

1810       . 

19,893 

1198 

1139 

1031 

185,737 


12,534 


16,204 


5680 


From  whatever  cause  there  was  an  abatement  of  small- 
pox, but  it  was  a  continuous  abatement  which  had  set  in 
before  Jenner  was  heard  of ;  and  at  the  same  time  we 
must  repeat  that  at  this  day  (when  all  swear  by  the 
unity  of  Nature  and  the  correlation  and  convertibility  of 
her  forces)  it  is  grossly  unscientific  to  pick  out  smallpox 
from  the  zymotic  diseases  and  deal  with  it  as  an  inde- 
pendent entity.  It  is  a  fever  among  fevers,  bred  and 
propagated  in  the  same  conditions,  and  can  never  be 
studied  apart  from  its  associates  without  serious  mis- 
understanding. 

These  Bills  of  Mortality,  as  compared  with  the  more 
accurate  statistics  of  our  own  time,  are  of  little  value ; 
but,  such  as  they  are,  they  are  constantly  referred  to,  and 
their  items  used,  as  by  Baron,  as  pretexts  for  most  un- 
warrantable assertions.  Any  influence  of  Vaccination 
on  the  smallpox  mortality  of  1801-10  was  practically 
nothing.  Vaccination  was  limited  to  a  few  thousands, 
and  those  chiefly  of  the  classes  least  subject  to  the  disease. 
The  great  seething  mass  of  metropolitan  squalor,  in  which 


THE  ROYAL  JENNERIAN  SOCIETY.  225 

smallpox  and  typhus  were  endemic,  was  untouched  by 
the  vaccine  lancet.  If  the  new  practice  did  good,  it  was 
in  discrediting  and  discouraging  the  culture  of  smallpox 
in  variolous  inoculation. 

To  return  to  the  EOYAL  JENNERIAN  SOCIETY.  Its 
halcyon-days  were  of  brief  duration.  Enthusiasm  abated, 
subscriptions  fell  off,  cases  of  smallpox  after  vaccina- 
tion came  to  be  heard  of,  and  serious  illness  and  death 
consequent  upon  "  the  benign  and  harmless  operation.'* 
Opponents  waxed  bold  and  could  not  be  silenced.  Then 
jealousies  and  dissensions  began  to  operate  within  the 
Society.  The  financial  secretary  strove  with  the  medical 
secretary.  Dr.  Walker's  habits  and  eccentricities,  viewed 
at  first  with  amusement,  excited  irritation  and  disgust, 
whilst  Jenner's  easy-going  mode  of  life  and  impecuniosity 
were  a  source  of  scandal  and  distrust.  The  climax  was 
reached  in  1806  when  Jenner  and  Walker  were  set  openly 
at  loggerheads,  and  a  fight  to  the  death  ensued. 

Walker,  it  is  to  be  said,  never  treated  Jenner  with 
respect.  Like  Pearson  he  took  stock  of  his  merits,  and 
did  not  rate  them  highly,  and  would  not  listen  to  his  dic- 
tation. "Vaccination,"  he  used  to  observe,  "is  extremely 
simple  as  to  facts,  while,  as  to  causes,  it  is  entirely  out  of 
the  reach  of  medical  men  with  all  their  theories."  Jenner, 
as  president  of  the  Medical  Council,  thought  he  had  a 
right  to  be  obeyed,  but  Walker  was  the  last  man  in  the 
world  to  yield  obedience  when  he  had  formed  an  opposite 
conviction — 

Jenner  [writes  Baron]  considered  it  his  duty  to  admonish  him, 
and  repeatedly  represented  to  him,  in  the  most  friendly  manner, 
the  mischievous  tendency  of  his  innovations.  These  remonstrances 
were  unavailing,  and  he  ceased  to  have  any  communication  with 
Dr.  Walker  after  the  summer  of  1805  ;  submitting  rather  to  lament 
in  silence  the  fate  of  the  Society  than  come  before  it  as  a  public 
accuser. 

Of  course  such  forbearance  could  not  last  long,  and 
instructions  issued  by  Walker  to  the  Nottingham  Vaccine 
Institution  in  March,  1806,  were  made  the  occasion  of  an 
open  rupture.  Jenner  brought  Walker's  conduct  under 
the  consideration  of  the  Medical  Council,  and  secured  his 
15 


226  VACCINATION. 


condemnation.  The  question  was  then  referred  to  the 
General  Court  of  the  Society  on  the  25th  of  July,  when 
a  motion  that  Walker  be  dismissed  from  his  office  was 
negatived  by  a  majority  of  three,  Walker  being  supported 
by  Sir  Joseph  Banks  and  Jenner  by  Dr.  Sims.  But  the 
victory  was  not  satisfactory  to  Walker,  and  on  the  8th 
of  August  he  put  an  end  to  the  strife  by  sending  in  his 
resignation. 

Baron's  solemn  account  of  the  contest  must  appal 
every  ingenuous  reader.  Jenner,  it  is  written,  regarded 
Walker's  proceedings  as  of  "  the  most  dangerous  charac- 
ter," as  "  placing  in  peril  the  safety  of  the  practice,"  and 
"as  likely  to  wreck  the  Society";  so  that  had  he  not 
retired  Jenner  would  have  been  compelled  to  withdraw 
his  countenance  from  Salisbury  Square.  As  we  read  we 
exclaim,  Whatever  did  the  dreadful  Doctor  do  ?  Here  is 
Baron's  answer — 

It  is  unnecessary  to  mention  the  specific  instances  of  misconduct 
which  were  established.  They  regarded  even  the  very  name  of  the 
affection  ;  the  method  of  managing  the  pustules ;  the  characters  of 
correct  vaccination ;  the  precautions  to  be  observed  in  conducting 
the  practice,  etc.,  etc. 

Moore  states  the  offence  plainly — 

Walker's  method  of  taking  lymph  was  to  cut  open  the  vesicles, 
and  to  wipe  out  the  contents  with  lint,  in  order  to  procure  the 
fresh  secretion.  This  harsh  treatment  of  infants  was  the  reverse  of 
that  which  he  was  directed  to  employ ;  and  as  he  was  unalterable  in 
his  resolution,  it  was  at  length  deemed  necessary  to  remove  him.* 

Turning  to  the  Life  of  Walker,  by  Dr.  Epps,  we  have 
the  difference  'twixt  Tweedledum  and  Tweedledee  still 
further  illustrated — 

Two  different  modes  have  been  adopted  in  taking  the  matter  of 
inoculation  from  the  vaccinated  subject:  one,  by  making  punctures 
round  the  outer  part  of  the  pock,  Dr.  Jenner's  mode ;  the  other, 
by  removing  the  crust  or  scab  from  the  centre  of  the  pock,  wiping 
out  the  fluid  beneath  it,  and  then  taking  the  matter,  indiscrimin- 
ately, from  any  part  of  the  whole  substance  of  the  pock,  Dr.  Walker's 
mode.f 

*  History  and  Practice  of  Vaccination,  p.  212.     By  James  Moore. 
London,  1817. 
t  Life  of  John  Walker,  M.D.,  p.  88.    By  John  Epps,  M.D.    Lond.,  1831. 


THE  ROYAL  JENNERIAN  SOCIETY.  227 

As  in  brawls  and  wars  generally,  the  ostensible  offence 
is  rarely  the  true  or  entire  offence,  so  when  we  revert 
to  the  events  of  1805-6  we  discover  that  Vaccination 
was  being  found  out,  and  that  Walker  served  Jenner's 
purpose  opportunely  as  scape-goat.  Walker's  behaviour, 
too,  constituted  him  a  convenient  victim.  Many  who 
cared  nothing  for  his  mode  of  "  taking  lymph  "  had  been 
hurt  by  his  scorn  of  their  self-importance,  and  were 
ready  to  assist  Jenner  in  effecting  his  humiliation.  Mr. 
Cline,  the  surgeon,  after  listening  to  many  speeches 
against  Walker,  summed  up  the  indictment,  "All  they 
complain  of  are  his  dress  and  address"  A  naval  officer, 
meeting  Walker  on  25th  July,  said,  "I  came  to  town 
to-day  to  hold  up  my  hand  in  your  support.  You  and 
Jenner  do  not  agree  over  some  trifles,  and  your  enemies 
wish  to  turn  the  fact  to  your  hurt,  but  they  have  been 
beaten.  Is  the  man  who  launches  a  vessel  the  only  one 
who  can  navigate  her  ?  If  Jenner  were  to  live  for  fifty 
years  to  come,  he  could  never  have  the  authority  of  your 
experience." 

Jenner's  victory  over  Walker  was  utterly  disastrous:  it 
destroyed  the  Royal  Jennerian  Society.  The  substantial 
supporters  of  the  Society  were  the  adherents  of  Walker, 
and  with  him  they  seceded,  secured  another  house  in 
Salisbury  Square,  and  established  THE  LONDON  VACCINE 
INSTITUTION  with  Walker  for  manager.  The  remnant 
of  the  Jennerian  Society  appointed  James  Sheridan 
Knowles,  a  young  Irish  surgeon,  as  Walker's  successor, 
and  for  distinction  purchased  him  the  degree  of  M.D. 
from  St.  Andrews.  He  had  the  suavity  that  Walker 
disdained,  and  little  else  beside.  He  neglected  his  duties, 
and  soon  the  traffic  in  the  "  benign  fluid  "  was  transferred 
to  the  new  establishment.  Ultimately  the  lease,  fixtures, 
and  furniture  of  the  Jennerian  house  were  disposed  of, 
and  a  retreat  effected  to  humbler  offices,  until  in  1813 
what  remained  of  the  Society  was  incorporated  in 
Walker's  concern. 

Walker  obtained  much  assistance  from  members  of  the 
Society  of  Friends,  and  the  fact  affords  Moore  (Jenner's 


VACCINATION. 

apologist)  occasion  for  certain  sneers.     He  describes  the 
meetings  in  Salisbury  Square  as — 

Shaded  with  the  Quakers'  broad-brimmed  hats ;  for  their  schis- 
matic assiduity  was  most  conspicuous,  though  their  primitive  meek- 
ness was  indiscernible.  In  support  of  their  friend,  they  argued  slyly, 
wrangled  tumultuously,  and  voted  almost  unanimously.  Yet,  in 
spite  of  this  contentious  pertinacity,  the  turbulent  Quaker,  on  the 
motion  of  Dr.  Jenner,  was  dismissed  from  his  office,  and  peace  was 
restored. 

Dismissed  he  was  not,  and  the  peace  that  ensued  on 
his  resignation  was  destruction.  The  success  of  Walker's 
Institution  (necessarily  dependent  on  subscriptions)  he 
accounts  for  by  an  anecdote  like  this— 

A  noble  Duke  informed  me  that  on  a  sultry  day  a  steaming, 
squab,  broad-faced  man,  in  a  Quaker's  garb,  with  his  hat  on  his 
head,  entered  his  room,  saying,  "  Friend,  I  am  come  on  a  charitable 
mission  to  request  thy  mite."  The  Duke,  amused  with  the  oddness 
of  the  salutation,  desired  him  to  be  seated,  and  to  explain  his  busi- 
ness. The  Quaker  wilily  suppressed  all  mention  of  disputes  in  the 
Jennerian  Society,  and  of  the  dismissal  of  Dr.  Walker,  which  were 
the  real  causes  for  soliciting  this  subscription ;  and  enlarged  tedi- 
ously on  the  utility  of  vaccination,  and  by  awkward  encomiums  on 
Dr.  Jenner,  led  the  Duke  to  believe  that  the  subscription  was 
solicited  for  a  Society  approved  by  him.  This  cunning  harangue 
drew  forth  the  Duke's  purse,  which  the  Quaker  spying,  unroUed 
his  list,  and  added  his  Grace's  name  as  a  decoy  for  others ;  and 
saying,  "Friend,  fare  thee  well,"  strutted  out  with  an  uncouth 
gait  and  an  air  of  uprightness.  By  such  artifices  a  large  subscrip- 
tion was  raised  from  those  who  prefer  paying  to  inquiry  ;  and  in 
the  meantime  the  Jennerian  Society  diminished  in  numbers,  and, 
undermined  by  calumnies,  declined  to  its  downfall.* 

It  is  not  to  be  imagined,  however,  that  the  collapse  of 
the  Royal  Jennerian  Society  disposed  of  Jenner  and  his 
party.  There  was  Jenner  to  provide  for :  he  could  not 
with  decency  be  forsaken :  and  there  was  a  stock  of 
vaccine  virus  to  be  kept  up,  for  which  pride  forbade 
dependence  on  Walker's  dispensary.  It  was  in  vain  to 
appeal  afresh  to  a  benevolent  public,  whose  confidence 
had  gone  elsewhere,  and  whose  suspicions  were  excited. 
It  was  therefore  determined  to  resort  to  Government  for 


*  History  and  Practice  oj  Vaccination,  pp.  213-215. 


THE  ROYAL  JENNERIAN  SOCIETY.  229 

help.  The  political  influence  of  the  Jennerian  party  was 
considerable,  and  we  shall  see  to  what  purpose  it  was 
exerted. 


OEIGIN   OF  THE  TERM  VACCINATION. 

A  new  practice  wants  a  new  name,  and  it  was  some 
time  before  one  was  found  for  Inoculation  with  Cowpox. 
Dr.  Walker  made  use  of  Vacciolation  and  to  Yacciolate 
in  1802 ;  but  it  was  Richard  Dunning,  surgeon,  of  Ply- 
mouth, who  introduced  Vaccination  and  to  Vaccinate; 
Jenner  writing  to  Dunning,  2nd  April,  1804,  observed — 

The  useful  terms  Vaccination  and  to  Vaccinate,  are  undoubtedly 
yours,  and  as  such  I  pronounced  them  at  a  meeting  of  the  Royal 
Jennerian  Society,  when  an  M.D.  present  mentioned  them  as 
imported  from  the  Continent.* 

Vaccination  is  not  as  yet  a  term  accepted  everywhere. 
Among  the  uneducated  we  hear  of  being  "  cut  for  the 
cowpock,"  or  simply  of  being  "  cut." 

Whilst  Vaccination  was  a  useful  word,  it  was,  and  is, 
often  misapplied.  Jenner's  prescription  of  Horsegrease 
Cowpox  was  Equination  rather  than  Vaccination ;  and 
when  virus  from  the  horse  was  employed  neat,  Equination 
was  the  accurate  designation  without  question.  Again, 
when  virus  was  generated  from  Small-pox  on  heifers, 
the  subsequent  inoculation  of  the  human  subject  was  not 
Vaccination  but  Variolation,  or  at  least  Variolous  Vac- 
cination. The  virus  in  public  use  at  this  day  derived 
from  Horsegrease  Cowpox,  Cowpox,  Horsepox,  Smallpox, 
Smallpox  Cowpox,  etc.,  etc.,  inoculated  from  arm-to-arm, 
in  series  prolonged  and  unsearchable,  is  called  Vaccina- 
tion ;  but  it  is  Vaccination  in  faith  or  fancy,  evidence  to 
anything  but  uncertainty  being  unattainable. 

*  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  ii.,  p.  336. 


230  VACCINATION. 


CHAPTER  XIY. 

APPLICATION  TO  PARLIAMENT  FOR  JENNER's  RELIEF,  1806. 

BARON  relates  an  instance  of  Jenner's  personal  shyness 
and  the  mental  torture  he  endured  in  prospect  of  a  festival 
of  the  Royal  Jennerian  Society  in  which  he  was  expected 
to  take  part.  Speaking  to  Baron  he  said — 

I  can  compare  my  feelings  to  those  of  no  one  but  Cowper,  the 
poet,  when  his  intellect  at  last  gave  way  to  his  fears  about  the 
execution  of  his  office  in  the  House  of  Lords.  It  was  reading 
Cowper's  Life,  I  believe,  that  saved  my  own  senses  by  putting  me 
fully  in  view  of  my  danger.  For  many  weeks  before  the  meeting 
I  began  to  be  agitated,  and,  as  it  approached,  I  was  actually 
deprived  both  of  appetite  and  sleep ;  and  when  the  day  came,  I 
was  obliged  to  deaden  my  sensibility  and  gain  courage  by  brandy 
and  opium.  The  meeting  was  at  length  interrupted  by  a  dissolu- 
tion of  Parliament,  which  sent  the  leading  people  to  the  country ; 
and  what  was  at  first  merely  postponed  was  ultimately  abandoned 
to  my  no  small  delight  and  satisfaction.* 

Something  of  this  timidity  was  no  doubt  due  to  his 
consciousness  of  playing  a  deceitful  part,  and  to  the 
appropriation  of  honour  and  reward  to  which  he  had  no 
just  claim.  Like  many  shy  men,  Jenner  could  be  insolent 
with  pen  and  ink — it  was  face  to  face  courage  to  which 
he  was  unequal ;  and  this  timidity,  with  other  reasons, 
accounted  for  his  failure  as  a  London  physician — as  "  the 
Cowpox  Doctor,"  as  he  was  commonly  described.  Those 
whose  encouragement  had  helped  to  lead  him  to  disaster, 
those  who  were  pleased  to  believe  that  he  had  taught 
mankind  how  to  escape  from  smallpox,  and  several  of  his 
professional  brethren,  were  all  concerned  to  help  him  out 
of  his  difficulties,  and,  if  possible,  at  the  public  expense. 
The  Duchess  of  Devonshire  wrote  to  Mr.  Angerstein — 

I  had  not  forgot  your  kind  interest  about  Jenner.  I  spoke  to  the 
Duke,  the  Prince,  and  Morpeth,  and  they  will  all  do  what  you  think 
best ;  but  Morpeth  has  undertaken  to  make  inquiries  whether  it  is 
not  possible  to  bring  his  case  again  before  Parliament.  He  thinks 

*  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  ii.  p.  162. 


PARLIAMENTARY  RELIEF  FOR  JENNER.  231 

if  that  could  be  done,  it  would  be  more  satisfactory  than  any  sub- 
scription. I  desired  him  to  find  out  how  Pitt  was  really  inclined 
in  the  matter,  and  I  only  waited  the  result  of  these  inquiries  to 
write  to  you. 

At  the  same  time  Jenner  himself  was  not  inactive,  and 
managed  to  advance  his  own  interest  effectually.  He 
came  to  London,  10th  May,  1805,  and  at  once  saw  Lord 
Egremont,  and  enlarged  upon  the  losses  he  had  incurred 
in  the  public  service ;  the  result  being  a  determination 
to  appeal  afresh  to  the  liberality  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. Moreover  he  succeeded  in  winning  over  the 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  in  the  manner  he  thus 
describes — 

During  my  residence  in  town  in  the  summer  of  1805,  Lady 
Crewe  happened  in  conversation  to  tell  me  how  much  Lord  Henry 
Petty  wished  :"or  a  conference  with  me  on  the  vaccine  subject ;  and 
that  she  woull  like  to  bring  us  together.  We  met  at  her  villa  at 
Hampstead,  and  went  so  fully  into  the  matter  that  nis  Lordship, 
convinced  of  tie  injury  I  had  sustained,  expressed  his  determina- 
tion to  bring  something  forward  in  the  ensuing  session.  Before 
the  session  arrived  Mr.  Pitt  died,  and  Lord  Henry  Petty  became 
Chancellor  of  tie  Exchequer.  In  the  early  part  of  1806,  I  again 
saw  his  Lordslip,  and  found  that  his  ardour  in  my  cause  had 
suffered  no  abatement.  This  was  soon  after  proved  by  his  Lord- 
ship's motion  in  the  House.* 

Lord  Henry  brought  Jenner's  case  before  the  Commons 
on  the  2nd  of  July,  and  recited  the  fabulous  matter  com- 
municated to  tiim  with  the  force  of  personal  conviction. 
Vaccination  wis  a  preventive  of  smallpox,  that  loathsome 
disease  which  spreads  death  throughout  the  world.  It 
was  in  1777  ;hat  Jenner  obtained  some  obscure  know- 
ledge of  the  jeculiar  virtue  of  Vaccine ;  and  from  that 
period  he  meditated  profoundly  on  the  subject,  accumu- 
lated informaion,  and  instituted  cautious  and  decisive 
experiments.  At  length  he  perfected  his  discovery,  and 
published  it  for  the  benefit  of  mankind.  Lord  Henry 
then  proceeded  to  relate  the  triumphs  of  Vaccination, 
not  only  throughout  Europe,  but  China  and  India ! 
Wherever  the  practice  was  introduced,  there  smallpox 

*Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  ii.  p.  55. 


VACCINATION. 

diminished  and  vanished.  There  was  Vienna,  for  instance, 
where  the  average  mortality  from  smallpox  was  835 
annually.  Vaccination  was  commenced  in  1799,  and  the 
mortality  dropped  in  1802  to  61,  in  1803  to  27,  and  in 
1804  to  2.  Thus  in  Vienna  there  was  an  annual  salvation 
of  833  human  beings.  This  undoubted  fact  had  made  a 
deep  impression  on  his  mind  [as  well  it  might !]  But, 
alas  !  what  was  doing  so  much  good  abroad  was  neglected 
and  distrusted  at  home.  In  the  City  of  London  the 
deaths  from  smallpox  had  been  on  an  average  1811 
annually,  and  this  mortality  had  been  gradually  reduced 
by  Vaccination  to  629.  Through  the  diffusion  of  the 
disease  by  variolous  inoculation,  the  deaths  last  year 
(1805)  had  been  raised  from  629  to  1685.  This  dreadful 
destruction  of  life,  especially  shocking  when  a  certain 
preventive  existed,  demanded  their  most  serious  atten- 
tion, and  in  the  situation  he  felt  bound  to  propose  a  plan 
to  bring  forward  a  mass  of  evidence,  to  elicit  the  truth, 
and  enlighten  the  public.  He  would  therefore  move — 

That  an  humble  Address  be  presented  to  His  Kajesty,  praying 
that  he  will  be  graciously  pleased  to  direct  His  ftoyal  College  of 
Physicians  to  inquire  into  the  state  of  Vaccine  In)culation  in  the 
United  Kingdom,  and  to  report  their  opinion  as  to  the  progress  it 
has  made,  and  the  causes  which  have  retarded  its  general  adoption. 

Should  this  report  from  the  Physicians  corroborate  the 
favourable  opinion  of  Vaccination  entertained  by  foreign 
nations,  it  must  greatly  tend  to  subdue  tlose  prejudices 
against  the  practice  which  have  been  fomented  here. 
And  in  that  case,  the  House  may  consido-  whether  the 
ingenious  Discoverer  has  been  remunerated  conformably 
to  the  liberal  spirit  and  character  of  this  country. 

Dr.  MATHEWS  seconded  the  motion,  and  contrasted  the 
safety  of  the  vaccine  with  the  dangers  of  variolous  ino- 
culation. He  had  no  doubt  the  country  w)uld  hasten  to 
testify  still  further  its  gratitude  to  the  learned  physician 
to  whom  they  owed  this  inestimable  beneit. 

Mr.  WILBERFORCE  did  not  approve  of  tie  reference  to 
the  College  of  Physicians.  He  would  have  preferred  an 
investigation  by  a  committee  of  the  Housj,  and  another 


PARLIAMENTARY  RELIEF  FOR  JENNER.  233 

committee  of  the  House  of  Lords.  The  opinions  of  such 
unbiased  persons  would  be  more  congenial  to  the  feel- 
ings of  the  people,  and  far  more  satisfactory  than  any 
medical  report  from  the  College  of  Physicians.  The 
latter  might  be  suspected  of  being  influenced  by  pro- 
fessional motives,  whereas  a  report  from  the  Lords  and 
Commons  would  be  universally  received  as  proceeding 
from  a  pure  desire  to  promote  the  general  good.  It  did 
not  surprise  him  that  Vaccination  had  made  less  progress 
at  home  than  abroad.  The  resistance  was  due  to  that 
curious  principle  in  the  human  mind  which  accepts  what 
comes  from  afar  with  admiration  whilst  what  is  familiar 
is  neglected  and  despised.  The  remedy  would  be  found 
in  diffusing  information  as  to  the  complete  success  of 
Vaccination  in  foreign  countries.  They  would  thus  dis- 
perse those  absurd  prejudices  which  are  engendered  and 
fostered  by  certain  selfish  and  interested  individuals. 

Mr.  WINDHAM  did  not  concur  in  the  advice  of  Mr. 
Wilberforce  to  refer  the  matter  to  a  parliamentary 
committee.  It  was  a  question  for  medical  men.  To  a 
committee  of  the  House  the  adage  might  be  applied, 
Ne  sutor  ultra  crepidam.  Let  them  enforce  with  their 
approval  the  report  of  the  physicians,  and  then  let  them 
proceed  to  remunerate  that  meritorious  individual  to 
whom  society  owed  the  utmost  gratitude.  He  could  not 
help  thinking  he  had  not  yet  received  what  was  due  for 
the  expense  and  trouble  the  discovery  had  cost  him. 

Mr.  BANKS  was  of  a  sceptical  turn.  He  wished  the 
motion  had  been  made  earlier  in  the  session,  for  then  he 
should  have  supported  the  suggestion  of  Mr.  Wilberforce. 
They  wished  to  know  whether  Vaccination  really  did 
afford  reasonable  security  from  smallpox.  It  was  not  a 
question  for  medical  men  for  which  the  House  was  in- 
competent. They  were  as  capable  of  determining  the 
point,  and  setting  it  clearly  before  the  public,  as  the 
most  learned  body  that  ever  existed.  He  wished  too, 
since  the  motion  would  be  carried,  that  the  Royal 
College  of  Surgeons  might  be  united  with  the  Physi- 
cians in  the  production  of  the  report.  As  for  Dr. 


234  VACCINATION. 


Jenner,  if  Vaccination  were  as  efficacious  as  asserted,  he 
might  be  left  to  find  his  reward  in  its  practice. 

Lord  HENRY  PETTY  in  summing  up  the  debate 
expressed  his  satisfaction  with  the  general  approval 
extended  to  his  motion.  He  did  not  think  the  House 
competent  to  form  a  judgment  on  Vaccination.  They 
could  not  decide  whether  cowpox  was  genuine  or 
spurious,  or  whether  the  affection  resulting  from  its  in- 
oculation was  regular  or  otherwise ;  nor  could  they 
determine  whether  eruptions  that  might  break  out  after 
Vaccination  were  induced  by  the  operation,  or  were  due 
to  other  causes.  Such  delicate  questions  could  only  be 
solved  by  medical  men.  As  for  the  proposal  to  annex 
the  Royal  College  of  Surgeons  to  that  of  the  Physicians, 
it  was  superfluous.  The  College  of  Physicians  would 
not  only  consult  the  Surgeons,  but  the  Medical  Colleges 
of  Scotland  and  Ireland  likewise.  If  the  report  should 
prove  favourable,  it  would  then  be  his  duty  to  propose 
that  remuneration  be  awarded  to  Dr.  Jenner  for  his 
inestimable  discovery. 

The  motion  was  then  put  from  the  Chair  and  agreed 
to  unanimously. 

It  is  needless  to  remark  that  the  report  of  the  College 
of  Physicians  was  a  mere  formality  toward  a  vote  of 
credit  for  Jenner's  relief.  He  lay  heavy  on  many  hands, 
and  none  were  more  anxious  to  be  relieved  from  the 
pressure  than  certain  influential  members  of  the  College 
whose  report  was  solicited.  The  operation  was  skilfully 
planned  for  the  end  designed,  and  Lord  Henry  Petty 
allowed  himself  to  be  primed  and  applied  with  singular 
facility :  but  public  men  have  often  to  deliver  as  of 
themselves  what  is  communicated  by  others,  and  to 
stand  responsible  for  absurdities  of  which  they  are  un- 
conscious. 


REPORT  OF  ROYAL  COLLEGE  OF  PHYSICIANS.      235 
CHAPTER   XV. 

REPORT   OF  THE  ROYAL   COLLEGE   OF  PHYSICIANS. 

THE  Report  of  the  Physicians  appeared  on  the  10th 
April,  1807,  a  verbose  document,  wherein  assertion  and 
conjecture  were  awkwardly  intermingled.  As  to  the 
extension  of  the  practice,  it  was  said — 

During  eight  years  which  have  elapsed  since  Dr.  Jenner  made 
his  discovery  public,  the  progress  of  Vaccination  has  been  rapid, 
not  only  in  all  parts  of  the  United  Kingdom,  but  in  every  quarter 
of  the  civilised  world.  In  the  British  Islands  some  hundred 
thousands  have  been  vaccinated ;  in  our  possessions  in  the  East 
Indies  upwards  of  800,000,  and  among  the  nations  of  Europe  the 
practice  has  become  general. 

Professional  men  have  submitted  it  to  the  fairest  trials,  and  the 
public  for  the  most  part  have  received  it  without  prejudice.  The 
testimony  in  its  favour  has  been  most  strong  and  satisfactory,  and 
the  practice  of  it,  though  it  has  received  a  check  in  some  quarters, 
appears  to  be  upon  the  increase  in  most  parts  of  the  United 
Kingdom. 

From  the  Report  it  appeared  that  the  opposition  to 
Vaccination  proceeded  from  the  Inoculators ;  and  the 
document  may  be  described  as  a  charge  against  the  old 
practice  as  much  as  a  positive  defence  of  the  new — 

However  beneficial  the  inoculation  of  the  Smallpox  may  have 
been  to  individuals,  it  appears  to  have  kept  up  a  constant  source 
of  contagion,  which  has  been  the  means  of  increasing  the  number 
of  deaths  by  what  is  called  the  natural  disease.  It  cannot  be 
doubted  that  this  mischief  has  been  extended  by  the  inconsiderate 
manner  in  which  great  numbers  of  persons,  even  since  the  intro- 
duction of  Vaccination,  are  every  year  inoculated  with  Smallpox, 
and  afterwards  required  to  attend  two  or  three  times  a-week  at  the 
place  of  inoculation,  through  every  stage  of  their  illness. 

Some  Inoculators  asserted  that  Vaccination  produced 
"  new,  unheard-of,  and  monstrous  diseases,"  and  made 
use  of  pictures  to  excite  terror  and  disgust — 

Publications  with  such  representations  have  been  widely  circu- 
lated, and  though  they  originated  either  in  gross  ignorance,  or 
wilful  misrepresentation,  yet  have  they  lessened  the  confidence  of 
many,  particularly  of  the  lower  classes,  in  Vaccination. 


236  VACCINATION. 


Whatever  the  character  of  Vaccination — had  the  claim 
made  in  its  favour  been  a  true  claim,  still  the  chief 
resistance  to  its  practice  would  have  consisted  in  the 
common  apathy — 

The  lower  orders  of  society  can  hardly  be  induced  to  adopt  pre- 
cautions against  evils  which  may  be  at  a  distance  ;  nor  can  it  be 
expected  from  them,  if  these  precautions  be  attended  with  expense. 
Unless,  therefore,  from  the  immediate  dread  of  epidemic  Smallpox, 
neither  Vaccination  or  Inoculation  appears  at  any  time  to  have 
been  general,  and  when  the  cause  of  terror  has  passed  by  the  public 
have  relapsed  into  indifference.  It  is  not  easy  to  suggest  a  remedy 
for  an  evil  so  deeply  implanted  in  human  nature. 

The  suggestion  was,  however,  made  that  Yaccination 
should  be  offered  gratis,  but  at  the  same  time  it  was  the 
opinion  of  the  College  that  until  Variolous  Inoculation 
was  superseded  or  prohibited,  "it  would  be  impossible  to 
prevent  the  constant  recurrence  of  Natural  Smallpox." 

The  recommendation  of  Vaccination  gratis  provoked 
the  wrath  of  Dr.  Moseley — 

Gratis !  [he  exclaimed]  :  Why,  every  person  knows  that  for  years 
past  in  almost  every  street  of  London,  signs  or  boards  on  the  sides 
of  houses,  or  on  Methodists'  shops,  or  in  apothecaries'  windows, 
have  invited  the  ignorant  multitude  to  gratuitous  Vaccination.  I 
have  seen  as  many  gratis  Cowpox  hand-bills,  gratis  puffs,  gratis 
pathetic  sermons  and  addresses,  and  gratis  station  advertisements 
as  would  load  an  ox.  What  does  the  College  think  of  the  mounte- 
bank Jennerian  placard,  dispersed  on  walls  and  alleys,  and  among 
all  the  blackguard  public  houses  in  town  and  country,  and  hung 
up  in  the  shop  or  parlour  of  every  Cowpoxer  in  England  with 
Their  Majesties'  Names  and  those  of  Their  August  Family  auda- 
ciously emblazoned  upon  it  ?  * 

The  Report  of  the  College  is  interesting  as  a  historic 
confession  and  a  mark  of  progress.  The  physicians  who 
drew  it  up  were  the  same  men  who  in  1800  professed 
their  unlimited  confidence  in  Vaccination,  whilst  as  yet 
they  knew  little  about  it,  proclaiming  in  the  newspapers 
that  they  considered  it  their  duty  to  declare — 

That  those  persons  who  have  had  the  Cowpox  are  perfectly 
secure  from  the  future  infection  of  the  Smallpox. 

*  Review  of  Report  on  Vaccination.  By  Benjamin  Moseley.  London, 
1308. 


REPORT  OF  ROYAL  COLLEGE  OF  PHYSICIANS.      237 


From  a  profession  so  unqualified  an  absolute  retracta- 
tion was  not  to  be  expected ;  but  experience  had  begotten 
caution,  and  it  is  instructive  to  remark  with  what  quali- 
fications the  retreat  from  the  original  position  was 
attempted.  Thus — 

The  security  derived  from  Vaccination  if  not  absolutely  perfect 
is  as  nearly  so  as  can  perhaps  be  expected  from  any  human  dis- 
covery ;  for  among  several  hundred  thousand  cases,  with  the  results 
of  which  the  College  has  been  made  acquainted,  the  number  of 
alleged  failures  has  been  surprisingly  small,  so  much  so  as  to  form 
no  reasonable  objection  to  the  general  adoption  of  Vaccination. 

The  Report  was  not  the  deliverance  of  men  possessed 
with  the  confidence  of  1800:  throughout  there  was 
manifest  the  failing  conviction  which  evades  responsi- 
bility and  seeks  for  confirmation  from  sources  external 
to  itself.  After  a  reference  to  the  Variolous  Test,  the 
Report  ran  on — 

It  appears  from  numerous  observations  communicated  to  the 
College,  that  those  who  have  been  vaccinated  are  secure  from  the 
contagion  of  epidemic  Smallpox.  Towns  and  districts  of  country 
in  which  Vaccination  had  been  general,  have  afterwards  had 
Smallpox  prevalent  on  all  sides  of  them  without  suffering  from  the 
contagion.  There  are  also  in  the  evidence  a  few  examples  of 
epidemic  Smallpox  having  been  subdued  by  a  general  Vaccination. 

The  liability  to  confound  coincidence  with  cause  was 
not  unknown  in  1807,  and  might  have  been  suggested  as 
a  possible  explanation  of  the  cessation  of  a  variolous 
epidemic  contemporaneously  with  Vaccination ;  although 
at  the  present  day  Vaccination,  when  Smallpox  is  epi- 
demic, is  known  to  do  little  else  than  invite  and  extend 
the  malady. 

How  the  general  (that  was  to  say  partial)  Vaccination 
of  certain  towns  and  country  districts  secured  universal 
exemption  from  Smallpox,  the  Physicians  failed  to 
explain.  Extraordinary  tales  of  Vicarious  Vaccination 
were  current  and  piously  received.  If  a  fraction  of  an 
urban  or  rural  community  happened  to  be  vaccinated 
(usually  a  fraction  least  likely  to  be  troubled  with  Small- 
pox in  any  event)  and  Smallpox  did  not  break  out,  or 
did  not  widely  prevail,  the  salvation  of  the  community 


238  VACCINATION. 


was  ascribed  to  the  Vicarious  Vaccination.  The  pheno- 
menon has,  strange  to  say,  escaped  the  attention  of 
theologians,  although  medical  men  constantly  attest  its 
occurrence. 

Ruefully  was  it  conceded  that  Vaccination  was  not  an 
absolute  preservative  from  Smallpox,  but  the  pain  of 
concession  was  softened  with  the  plea  of  mitigation — 

In  almost  every  case  where  Smallpox  has  succeeded  Vaccination, 
the  disease  has  varied  much  from  its  ordinary  course ;  it  has  neither 
been  the  same  in  violence,  nor  in  the  duration  of  its  symptoms,  but 
has,  with  very  few  exceptions,  been  remarkably  mild,  as  if  the 
Smallpox  had  been  deprived,  by  the  previous  vaccine  disease,  of 
all  its  usual  malignity. 

It  goes  without  saying,  that  such  a  statement  was 
quackish  romance.  How  could  a  physician  know  that 
any  case  of  Smallpox  had  been  made  milder  by  Vaccina- 
tion ?  for  how  could  he  know  how  severe  the  disease 
would  have  been  without  Vaccination  ?  Any  ground  of 
comparison  was  wanting.  Smallpox  is  an  eruptive  fever 
of  wide  degrees  of  intensity — slight  as  to  be  a  trivial 
ailment,  severe  as  to  be  inevitably  fatal.  "So  true," 
wrote  Dr.  Wagstaffe  in  1722,  "  is  that  common  observa- 
tion, that  there  is  one  sort  in  which  a  nurse  cannot  kill, 
and  another  which  even  a  physician  cannot  cure."  Yet 
every  case  of  mild  Smallpox  after  Cowpox  came  into 
fashion  was  placed  to  the  credit  of  Vaccination ! 

Some  writers  [the  Report  continues]  have  greatly  undervalued 
the  security  Vaccination  affords,  while  others  have  considered  it  to 
be  of  a  temporary  nature  only ;  but  if  any  reliance  is  to  be  placed 
on  the  statements  laid  before  the  College,  its  power  of  protecting 
the  human  body  from  Smallpox,  though  not  perfect  indeed,  is 
abundantly  sufficient  to  recommend  it  to  the  prudent  and  dis- 
passionate. The  opinion  that  Vaccination  affords  but  a  temporary 
security  is  supported  by  no  analogy  in  Nature,  nor  by  the  facts 
which  have  hitherto  occurred. 

The  analogy  of  Nature  was  a  treacherous  support, 
whilst  the  Physicians  did  not  foresee  the  time  when 
their  successors  would  plead  the  fact  of  the  temporary 
security  of  Vaccination  as  a  reason  for  systematic  Re- 
Vaccination. 


REPORT  OF  ROYAL  COLLEGE  OF  PHYSICIANS.      239 


It  is  not  difficult  to  discern  between  the  lines  of  the 
Report  a  spirit  of  doubt  and  hesitation.  Those  who 
framed  it  had  gone  too  far  to  turn  back;  there  was 
Jenner  on  their  hands;  and  a  public  ready  to  hoot  if 
there  was  any  open  apostasy.  The  outlook  at  home  was 
not  encouraging,  but  there  was  the  Continent,  yea  more, 
the  wide  world  itself  wherein  to  cover  the  reproach  of 
failure — 

They  could  not  be  insensible  [said  the  Physicians]  to  the  con- 
firmation they  receive  not  only  from  the  introduction  of  Vaccination 
into  every  part  of  Europe,  but  throughout  the  vast  Continents  of 
Asia  and  America. 

The  vast  Continents  of  Asia  and  America !  A  fine 
phrase — a  very  fine  phrase,  with  more  comfort  in  it  than 
scoffers  might  imagine. 

In  the  Report  we  detect  one  good  service,  namely,  the 
explosion  of  Jenner's  fiction  about  Spurious  Cowpox. 
When  Vaccination  was  first  brought  forward,  cases  were 
adduced  of  Smallpox  after  Cowpox.  Jenner  at  once 
asserted  that  the  Cowpox  in  such  instances  must  have 
been  spurious,  for  Smallpox  after  genuine  Cowpox  was 
impossible;  and  Spurious  Cowpox  was  thenceforward 
freely  used  to  baffle  inquirers  and  to  account  for  failures. 
Spurious  Cowpox  served  the  ends  of  the  Vaccinators 
magnificently,  but  by  and  by  it  began  to  have  awkward 
consequences.  Genuine  Cowpox  was  said  to  be  harmless 
— it  was  the  Spurious  that  was  ineffective  or  worked 
mischief ;  and  the  Inoculators  plied  the  terror  of  Spurious 
Pox  against  Vaccination.  It  therefore  became  necessary 
to  clear  Spurious  Cowpox  out  of  the  way,  and  Jenner, 
before  the  College  of  Physicians,  pressed  upon  the  point, 
"  owned  up,"  as  Americans  say,  and  authorised  the  follow- 
ing explanation — 

Some  deviations  from  the  usual  course  have  occasionally  occurred 
in  Vaccination,  which  the  Author  of  the  practice  has  called  Spurious 
Cowpox,  by  which  the  public  have  been  misled,  as  if  there  were  a 
true  and  a  false  Cowpox;  but  it  appears  that  nothing  more  was 
meant  than  to  express  irregularity  or  difference  from  that  common 
form  and  progress  of  the  vaccine  pustule  from  which  its  efficacy  is 
inferred. 


240  VACCINATION. 


Mark !  Here  was  a  third  definition  of  Spurious  Cow- 
pox  by  Jenner. 

First,  in  the  Inquiry  of  1798,  he  described  Spurious 
Cowpox  as  eruptions  on  the  cow  underived  from  horse- 
grease,  producing  no  erysipelas  when  inoculated  on  the 
human  subject,  and  without  effect  against  Smallpox. 
True  Cowpox  was  generated  from  horsegrease,  and  from 
horsegrease  only. 

Second,  in  the  Origin  of  the  Vaccine  Inoculation  of 
1801  all  reference  to  horsegrease  was  dropped  for  com- 
mercial reasons,  whilst  the  existence  of  Spurious  Cowpox 
was  reasserted  "as  some  varieties  of  spontaneous  eruptions 
upon  the  cow." 

Third,  before  the  Physicians  in  1807,  he  removed  the 
spurious  disease  from  the  cow  altogether,  saying,  nothing 
more  was  meant  by  Spurious  Cowpox  than  variations  in 
the  form  and  progress  of  vaccine  pustules  on  the  arms  of 
the  vaccinated ! 

In  short,  to  vary  the  phrase  of  Betsy  Prig,  "  There 
never  was  no  Spurious  Cowpox."  Slippery,  very  slippery, 
was  the  immortal  Jenner. 

With  the  report  of  the  Royal  College  of  Physicians 
were  delivered  reports  from  the  London  College  of  Sur- 
geons, and  from  the  Edinburgh  and  Dublin  Colleges  of 
Physicians  and  of  Surgeons. 

The  report  from  the  London  College  of  Surgeons  was 
considered  most  unsatisfactory,  and  could  its  tenor  have 
been  foreseen,  the  Jennerians  might  never  have  asked  for 
it.  1100  circulars  were  dispatched  on  15th  December, 
1806,  to  all  the  members  of  the  College  whose  addresses 
were  known  in  the  United  Kingdom,  submitting  the 
following  questions — 

1st.  How  many  persons  have  you  vaccinated  ? 

2nd.  Have  any  of  your  patients  had  Smallpox  after  Vaccination  ? 

3rd.  Have  any  bad  effects  occurred  in  your  experience  in  con- 
sequence of  Vaccination  ?  and  if  so,  what  are  they  ? 

4th.  Is  the  practice  of  Vaccination  increasing  or  decreasing  in 
your  neighbourhood  ?  if  decreasing,  to  what  cause  do  you  impute  it  ? 

To  the  1100  circulars  only  426  replies  were  received. 


REPORT  OF  ROYAL  COLLEGE  OF  PHYSICIANS.      241 

Why  nearly  two-thirds  of  the  members  kept  silent  when 
at  the  outset  they  were  converted  in  multitude  to  Vac- 
cination, was  left  unexplained.  The  replies  were  thus 
summarised  by  the  Board  on  17th  March,  1807 — 

The  number  of  persons  stated  in  such  letters  to  have  been  vac- 
cinated, is  164,381. 

The  number  of  cases  in  which  Smallpox  had  followed  Vaccina- 
tion is  56. 

The  Board  think  it  proper  to  remark  under  this  head,  that,  in 
the  enumeration  of  cases  in  which  Smallpox  has  succeeded  Vaccina- 
tion, they  have  included  none  but  those  in  which  the  subject  was 
vaccinated  by  the  surgeon  reporting  the  facts. 

The  bad  consequences  which  have  arisen  from  Vaccination  are — 

66  cases  of  eruption  of  the  skin,  and 
24  of  inflammation  of  the  arm,  whereof 
3  proved  fatal. 

Vaccination,  in  the  greater  number  of  Counties  from 
which  reports  have  been  received,  appears  to  be  in- 
creasing: in  the  Metropolis  it  is  on  the  decrease. 

The  principal  reasons  assigned  for  the  decrease  are — 

Imperfect  Vaccination, 
Instances  of  Smallpox  after  Vaccination, 
Supposed  bad  consequences, 
Publications  against  the  practice, 
Popular  prejudices. 

The  report  of  the  Edinburgh  College  of  Physicians 
disowned  acquaintance  with  Vaccination,  the  practice 
being  entirely  in  the  hands  of  surgeons  and  other  prac- 
titioners— 

With  a  view,  however,  to  publish  their  conviction  of  the  immense 
benefits  which  have  been,  and  which  will  in  future  be  derived  to 
the  world,  from  Inoculation  for  the  Cowpox,  they  had  spontaneously 
and  unanimously  elected  Dr.  Jenner  an  honorary  Fellow  of  their 
College,  a  mark  of  distinction  which  they  very  rarely  confer,  and 
which  they  confine  almost  exclusively  to  Foreign  Physicians  of  the 
first  eminence. 

The  report  of  the  College  of  Surgeons,  dated  3rd  March, 
1807,  left  nothing  for  the  Jennerians  to  desire.    The  Edin- 
burgh surgeons  were  satisfied  frpm  their  own  experience 
that  Vaccination  constituted  a  permanent  security  from 
16 


242  VACCINATION. 


Smallpox,  and  they  had  observed  no  ill  consequences  from 
the  practice.  Vaccination  commenced  in  Edinburgh  in 
1801,  and  was  now  so  general  in  the  city — 

That  for  two  or  three  years  past,  Smallpox  has  been  reckoned 
rather  a  rare  occurrence,  even  among  the  lower  order  of  the  inhabi- 
tants, unless  in  some  particular  quarters  about  twelve  months 
ago.  Among  the  higher  ranks  of  the  inhabitants  the  disease  is 
unknown. 

Rare,  unless  in  some  quarters  about  a  year  ago  !  We 
turn  to  the  report  of  the  Edinburgh  Dispensary  for  1805, 
and  there  we  read — 

The  loathsome  disease  has  unfortunately  been  very  prevalent  in 
several  quarters  of  the  city. 

And  this  coincidently  with  extensive  Vaccination  to 
which  apparently  there  was  no  active  opposition  !  We 
have  also  to  remember  in  this  connection  the  statement 
of  Professor  Alexander  Monro  in  1765,  that  "  the  inhabi- 
tants of  Scotland  generally  have  Smallpox  in  their 
infancy  or  childhood;  very  few  adults  being  seen  in 
this  disease  "  ;  and  that  in  Edinburgh,  with  conditions 
strongly  favourable  to  Smallpox,  the  mortality  from  the 
disease  was  on  an  average  little  more  than  a  hundred  a 
year.  The  Edinburgh  physicians  knew  nothing  practi- 
cally of  Vaccination,  and  we  see  how  the  Surgeons,  who 
did  know,  shaped  their  evidence. 

The  Dublin  College  of  Physicians  echoed  the  fashion- 
able opinion  "  that  Cowpox  Inoculation  was  safe,  and 
fully  answered  its  purpose."  They  were  "  willing  to 
allow  that  doubtful  cases  had  occurred  of  Smallpox  after 
Vaccination,  but  on  minute  investigation,  these  supposed 
instances  originated  generally  in  misrepresentation,  or 
the  difficulty  of  discriminating  between  Smallpox  and 
other  eruptions."  Rather  awkwardly,  seeing  how  the 
opposite  opinion  was  in  vogue,  they  professed  their  faith 
in  Variolous  Inoculation  — 

The  Smallpox  is  rendered  a  much  less  formidable  disease  in 
Ireland  by  the  frequency  of  Inoculation  for  it,  than  in  other  parts 
of  His  Majesty's  dominions',  where  prejudices  against  Inoculation 
have  prevailed.  Hence  parents,  not  unnaturally,  object  to  the 


JENNER  RELIEVED— 1807.  243 

introduction  of  a  new  disease,  in  the  shape  of  Vaccination,  pre- 
ferring to  trust  to  the  practice  with  the  mildness  and  safety  of 
which  they  are  well  acquainted. 

The  Dublin  College  of  Surgeons  showed  themselves 
more  fully  abreast  of  the  time.  They  had  nothing  to 
say  for  Inoculation,  but  testified  their  confidence  in 
Vaccination,  and  how  its  practice  was  increasing  in 
Ireland.  From  1800  to  1806  a  total  of  14,335  had  been 
"  inoculated  with  vaccine  infection "  at  the  Dublin 
institutions,  and  many  elsewhere — 

Cowpox  has  been  found  to  be  a  mild  disease,  and  rarely  attended 
with  danger,  or  any  alarming  symptom,  and  the  few  cases  of 
Smallpox  which  have  occurred  in  Ireland  after  supposed  Vac- 
cination, have  been  satisfactorily  proved  to  have  arisen  from 
accidental  circumstances. 

Arisen  from  accidental  circumstances  !  Thus  was  the 
divine  illumination  of  experience  veiled  and  denied ! 

Fortified  with  this  budget  of  questionable  evidence, 
the  Government  proceeded  to  claim  from  the  House  of 
Commons  a  second  endowment  for  Jenner. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

JENNER  RELIEVED — 1807. 

WHILST  the  Eoyal  College  of  Physicians  were  preparing 
their  report,  there  was  perturbation  in  the  political 
world.  Dull  and  bigoted  George  III.  refusing  on  the 
pretext  of  his  oath  to  concede  to  Roman  Catholics  the 
rights  of  citizens,  a  change  of  administration  ensued,  and 
Mr.  Perceval,  a  man  after  the  King's  own  heart,  replaced 
Lord  Henry  Petty  as  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer, 
and  proceeded  to  give  effect  to  the  plan  for  relieving 
Jenner ;  a  purpose  for  which  the  report  "  On  the  State 
of  Vaccine  Inoculation  in  the  United  Kingdom "  was 
merely  a  blind. 

On  the  29th  July,  1807,  the  House  of  Commons  being 


244  VACCINATION. 


in  Committee  of  Supply,  Mr.  PERCEVAL  moved  that  Dr. 
Jenner  be  awarded  a  second  sum  of  £10,000  for  his 
matchless  discovery.  Smallpox  was  one  of  the  greatest 
afflictions  of  mankind,  from  which  hardly  any  one 
escaped.  For  this  dreadful  malady,  Jenner  had  invented 
a  preventive,  unknown  before,  or  if  known,  which  had 
never  been  published.  He  did  not  therefore  think  the 
Committee  would  consider  his  proposal  extravagant ; 
indeed  it  was  rather  an  act  of  justice  than  of  liberality. 
Those  who  had  read  the  Report  of  the  Physicians  would 
recognise  the  immense  advantages  of  the  new  practice. 
As  for  its  inconveniences,  they  were  as  nothing  to  those 
which  attended  Variolous  Inoculation,  and  the  few 
mistakes  recorded  were  due  to  ignorance  and  carelessness. 
It  might  be  objected  by  those  who  adhered  to  Mr. 
Malthus,  that  nothing  was  gained  by  saving  lives  from 
pestilence;  for  deaths  were  not  losses  where  means  of 
subsistence  were  inadequate  ;  but  for  his  part  he  would 
disregard  the  argument  even  if  it  were  true.  It  was 
much  better  to  follow  the  dictates  of  their  hearts,  and 
preserve  life  whenever  it  was  within  their  power.  He 
had  often  heard  that  the  true  riches  of  a  state  were  its 
inhabitants.  But  he  would  not  attempt  to  measure 
Jenner's  award  by  the  number  of  lives  that  his  invention 
would  preserve  to  the  world.  If  he  did  so,  what  sum 
would  they  have  to  offer  !  All  he  need  say  was,  that 
the  £10,000  proposed  represented  no  more  than  a 
moderate  acknowledgment  of  labour  and  genius  devoted 
to  the  service  of  humanity. 

Mr.  SHAW  LEFEVRE  opposed  the  motion.  He  had 
thought  the  former  application  for  £20,000  excessive, 
and  had  concurred  with  those  who  reduced  it  to  £10,000. 
He  had  moreover  acquiesced  in  the  smaller  sum  by 
reason  of  his  faith  in  the  report  of  the  Committee  of  the 
House  on  the  New  Inoculation,  but  he  now  discovered 
that  many  of  the  statements  in  that  report  were  erroneous. 
It  attested  that  Vaccination  was  an  infallible  preventive 
of  smallpox,  whilst  the  report  of  the  Surgeons  now 
admits  56  failures  !  The  first  report  stated  that  no 


JENNER  RELIEVED— 1807.  245 

disease  followed  Vaccination,  whilst  now  it  is  confessed 
that  scrofula  and  other  alarming  symptoms  are  its 
occasional  sequences  !  The  report  thus  prejudicial  to 
Vaccination  nevertheless  argues  in  its  favour,  and  he 
would  like  to  call  witnesses  to  the  bar  of  the  House  who 
would  make  manifest  still  further  its  inconsistencies  and 
inaccuracies.  At  this  late  period  of  the  session,  it  was 
not  right  to  vote  away  such  an  amount  of  public  money. 
[Such  "  late  periods  "  are.  however,  always  selected  for 
jobs.]  Besides,  it  was  generally  known  that  Benjamin 
Jesty  of  Worth  in  Dorsetshire  discovered  the  use  of 
cowpox  long  before  Jenner,  and  if  the  House  was 
resolved  to  be  liberal,  the  reward  should  be  shared 
with  Jesty,  or  with  Jesty's  family.  He  should  oppose 
the  vote,  but  he  did  not  say  that  he  would  always 
do  so.  His  purpose  was  to  gain  time  for  more  careful 
inquiry. 

Lord  HENRY  PETTY,  who  had  first  moved  in  the 
matter,  came  to  .his  successor's  support.  He  had  no 
doubt  as  to  the  efficacy  of  Vaccination,  nor  as  to  Jenner 
being  its  discoverer.  His  difficulty  was  to  find  a  rule 
for  the  justice  of  the  case ;  for  whoever  considered  the 
value  of  the  discovery  must  perceive  that  it  would  be 
impossible  for  them  to  deal  generously  with  the  discoverer. 
His  service  to  mankind  was  entirely  beyond  any  financial 
estimate.  It  was  objected  that  Vaccination  was  not 
infallible.  He  replied  that  absolute,  never-failing  per- 
fection ought  not  to  be  expected  from  any  human  device  : 
they  should  rest  well  satisfied  in  the  approximation  to 
infallibility  that  belonged  to  Vaccination.  Its  daily  bene- 
fits were  numberless.  Multitudes  of  seamen,  soldiers, 
and  citizens  of  every  description  had  been  saved  by  it, 
and  in  contemplating  its  future  effects  on  the  human 
race,  the  mind  was  lost  in  amazement  and  gratitude. 
How  then  should  they  presume  to  talk  of  liberality 
towards  Jenner,  the  benefactor  !  They  should  recollect 
how  he  stands  in  the  estimation  of  the  world,  how  they 
were  acting  in  view  of  all  nations,  and  how  their  own 
characters  were  at  stake  in  their  demeanour  towards 


246  VACCINATION. 


him.  As  to  Malthus  there  was  a  misapprehension.  He 
had  taught  nothing  that  forbade  the  extinction  of  an 
infectious  disease  which  so  greatly  reduced  human  happi- 
ness. In  their  concern  for  Vaccination,  the  House  should 
not  forget  the  mischief  that  was  still  wrought  by  inocu- 
lation with  smallpox.  Zealous  as  he  was  for  the  new 
practice,  he  had  no  wish  to  meddle  with  what  others 
might  imagine  (however  absurdly)  tended  to  their  own 
preservation  and  that  of  their  families,  but  no  one  had  a 
right  to  endanger  the  lives  of  others.  It  was  proved 
beyond  dispute  that  those  who  were  inoculated  with 
smallpox  diffused  the  fatal  contagion  by  going  abroad, 
or  being  carried  abroad.  He  thought,  therefore,  it  was 
not  only  the  right,  but  the  duty  of  the  State  to  oblige 
those  who  were  infected  with  smallpox  to  keep  within 
doors  until  complete  recovery.  He  would  not  move  an 
amendment  to  the  resolution,  but  would  have  no  hesita- 
tion in  acceding  to  a  larger  sum. 

General  TARLETON  could  not  withhold  his  tribute  of 
praise  from  the  author  of  this  blessing  to  mankind.  To 
his  knowledge,  it  had  saved  the  lives  of  many  in  his 
Majesty's  service.  Soldiers  could  march  and  perform 
every  military  duty  when  under  the  process  of  vaccina- 
tion. It  had  been  said  that  gentlemen  in  the  army  had 
no  respect  for  anything  save  success  in  war,  but  he 
thought  that  many  officers  knew  how  to  admire  Jenner, 
the  preserver  of  millions,  and  to  allow  that  in  future 
ages  his  glory  would  exceed  the  renown  of  the  greatest 
warriors. 

Mr.  STUEGES  BOURNE  denounced  the  practice  of  inocu- 
lating out-patients  at  the  Smallpox  Hospital  whereby 
the  disease  was  systematically  perpetuated  and  diffused 
throughout  the  community.  He  thought  the  legislature 
would  be  as  much  justified  in  taking  measures  to  prevent 
this  evil  by  restraint,  as  a  man  would  be  in  snatching  a 
firebrand  out  of  the  hands  of  a  maniac  just  as  he  was 
going  to  set  fire  to  a  city. 

Mr.  HAWKINS  BROWNE  confessed  with  shame  that  he 
had  voted  for  £10,000  instead  of  £20,000  in  1802  ;  but 


JENNER  EELIEVED— 1807.  247 

at  that  time  he  little  knew  the  extent  of  Jenner's  service 
to  the  human  race. 

Mr.  EDWARD  MORRIS  did  not  think  that  even  what 
had  been  said  sufficiently  set  forth  their  debt  of  gratitude 
to  Jenner.  His  discovery  afforded  a  reasonable  expecta- 
tion of  the  extermination  of  smallpox,  and  the  merit  of 
the  transcendent  discovery  was  all  his  own.  Inoculation 
in  the  old  mode  mitigated  the  disease  in  a  few,  and 
spread  it  in  full  fury  over  many.  It  was  therefore  a 
curse  to  mankind  instead  of  a  blessing.  The  Smallpox 
Hospital  in  its  practice  of  inoculation,  was  a  source  of 
pestilence  and  a  multiplier  of  victims  to  this  deplorable 
distemper.  The  pre-eminent  distinction  of  Vaccination 
was  that  it  preserved  its  subject  and  injured  no  one. 
This  unspeakable  blessing  they  owed  to  Jenner,  nor  had 
the  least  improvement  been  effected  upon  his  original 
and  carefully  matured  prescription.  They  were  bound 
to  consider  how  he  had  abandoned  the  lucrative  pursuit 
of  his  profession,  and  surrendered  many  years  of  his  life 
for  the  good  of  his  country  and  mankind.  He  would 
therefore  submit  an  amendment  to  the  resolution  before 
the  Committee,  that  the  grant  be  £20,000  instead  of 
£10,000,  to  mark  their  sense  of  Jenner's  merits  and  to 
place  him  in  a  state  of  independence. 

The  amendment  was  warmly  supported  by  Mr.  Wil- 
ber force,  Mr.  Windham,  Sir  John  Sebright,  and  Mr. 
Herbert. 

Mr.  PERCEVAL,  as  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  stood 
to  his  resolution,  but  with  indifferent  arguments.  It 
was  without  precedent  that  a  vote  recommended  by 
Government  should  be  thus  increased.  He  admitted 
that  Jenner  was  entitled  to  much  more  than  they  could 
afford,  but  it  was  also  without  precedent  that  so  great  a 
sum  as  £30,000  (inclusive  of  the  former  vote)  should  be 
bestowed  on  any  discoverer. 

Mr.  WILLIAM'  SMITH  would  not  submit  to  these  objec- 
tions. He  recited  the  triumphs  of  Vaccination  in  Asia 
and  America,  and  said  it  was  true  as  of  old  that  a  prophet 
had  no  honour  in  his  own  country.  [An  observation 


248  VACCINATION. 


singularly  inapplicable  to  Jenner.]  He  urged  the  Com- 
mittee to  vote  for  the  larger  sum,  and  said  that  whilst 
the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  might  in  his  public 
capacity  protest,  yet  in  his  secret  heart  he  would  not  be 
displeased  if  overborne  by  the  sentiment  of  the  House,  of 
the  country,  and  of  the  world. 

Mr.  WHITBREAD  begged  the  Committee  to  bear  in  mind 
that  Jenner  had  scorned  to  monopolise  Vaccination,  and 
had  thereby  sacrificed  a  great  fortune.  He  called  on  the 
House  to  vote  for  the  larger  sum.  Vaccination  furnished 
the  means  for  lessening  the  poor  rate.  Reduced  small- 
pox signified  fewer  deaths,  fewer  orphans,  fewer  widows. 
Vaccination  meant  better  health  for  the  poor  and  more 
money  in  the  pockets  of  the  rich.  They  would  excuse 
this  appeal  of  his  to  the  cupidity  of  the  landed  interest 
inasmuch  as  he  had  been  anticipated  in  the  exhibition  of 
loftier  considerations.  He  also  wished  to  relieve  the 
House  from  a  renewal  of  this  question.  Let  them  re- 
ward Jenner  once  for  all,  and  liberally :  and  remember 
that  what  was  called  economy  in  this  connection,  if  prac- 
tised by  the  House,  would  be,  in  the  eye  of  the  world, 
their  disgrace. 

Others  spoke  in  a  similar  strain,  and  when  the  House 
divided,  60  voted  for  Mr.  Morris's  amendment,  and  47 
against  it,  £20,000  being  carried  by  a  majority  of  13. 
Including  the  £10,000  voted  in  1802,  Jenner  was  thus 
awarded  £30,000  of  public  money,  in  times,  too,  of  war 
and  scarcity. 

The  debate,  it  will  be  observed,  was  conducted  in  a 
House  of  107  members  at  a  late  period  of  the  session, 
and  the  variations  among  the  speakers  consisted  •  in 
degrees  of  extravagance  and  credulity.  The  fabulous 
matter  as  to  Jenner  personally  affords  curious  evidence 
of  the  manner  in  which  legends  originate  in  the  presence 
of  contemporaries,  and  how  they  come  to  be  repeated 
with  the  fervour  of  good  faith  by  men  whose  competence 
and  honesty  might  be  taken  for  unimpeachable.  Jenner's 
party  had  whipped  up  their  adherents,  and  the  issue  was 
sedulously  arranged  for ;  but  because  they  had  their  way 


JENNER  RELIEVED— 1807.  249 

it  need  not  be  assumed  that  it  was  necessary  to  circum- 
vent any  active  adversaries.  Apathy  was  their  chief 
difficulty.  There  was  little  to  be  got  out  of  cowpox  by 
the  ordinary  politician ;  and  then,  as  now,  the  average 
M.P.  rarely  committed  himself  to  any  project  that  did 
not  obviously  make  for  his  popularity.  As  for  the 
enthusiasm  for  Vaccination  displayed  by  the  speakers  in 
the  House,  we  have  to  recollect  that  they  were  not  con- 
verts to  the  practice  per  se.  No  really  new  discovery 
was  ever  received  with  such  an  instant  chorus  of  appro- 
bation by  the  mob,  educated  or  uneducated.  They  were 
one  and  all  bred  under  the  severe  and  dangerous  practice 
of  Variolous  Inoculation,  whereof  Vaccination  was  no 
more  than  a  modification  with  a  seductive  promise  of 
equal  or  greater  security  from  smallpox,  and  exemption 
from  its  perils  and  annoyances.  Unless  this  preposses- 
sion be  allowed  for,  the  conduct  of  Parliament  toward 
Jenner  cannot  be  rightly  understood.  There  was  not  a 
word  uttered  against  Vaccination  from  the  ground  which 
physiologists  at  this  day  occupy,  for  that  ground,  in  a 
scientific  sense,  was  as  yet  unknown.  Smallpox  was  a 
mysterious  visitation  to  be  mysteriously  dealt  with — 
dodged,  if  possible,  by  medical  artifice ;  and  not,  as  we 
are  persuaded,  a  crisis  of  impurity  in  the  blood  induced 
by  foul  conditions  of  life,  which  cannot  be  better  dis- 
posed of  than  in  the  course  of  nature  by  eruptive  fever. 
If  we  could  suppress  smallpox  (in  any  other  way  than 
by  the  removal  of  its  causes)  we  should  merely  alter  its 
manifestation  and  have  to  accept  it  in  some  other  and 
aggravated  form  of  disease. 


250  VACCINATION. 


CHAPTER    XVII. 

VACCINATION   ESTABLISHED  AND  ENDOWED. 

JENNER  provided  for,  his  adherents  had  yet  another  end 
to  achieve,  namely,  their  own  release  from  the  burden  of 
the  Royal  Jennerian  Society,  paralysed  by  the  secession 
of  Dr.  Walker  and  the  Friends  and  the  establishment  of 
the  London  Vaccine  Institution.  At  first  they  had  en- 
deavoured to  discredit  the  new  Institution,  even  to  the 
extent  of  distributing  hand-bills  like  the  following  in 
the  streets — 

A  CAUTION. 

To  persons  desirous  of  obtaining  INOCULATION  for  the  Cowpox 
Gratis  under  the  sanction  of 

THE  EOYAL  JENNERIAN  SOCIETY. 

Whereas,  Doctor  JOHN  WALKER  has,  under  various  pretences, 
obstructed  persons  going  to  the  Central  House  of  this  Society,  the 
Public  are  hereby  warned  to  be  upon  their  guard  against  any 
insidious  representations,  the  connection  between  Dr.  WALKER  and 
the  Society  having  ceased,  and  Dr.  KNOWLES  having  been  appointed 
the  Eesident  Inoculator  at  the  Society's  House,  No.  14  Salisbury 
Square. 

By  Order  of  the  Directors  and  Medical  Council,  9th-  October, 
1806. 

"  It  was  all  in  vain.  Walker  was  preferred  to  Sheridan 
Knowles  backed  by  Jenner,  whose  friends  had  no  liking 
for  the  support  of  the  Society  out  of  their  own  pockets. 
It  was  therefore  planned  to  resort  to  Parliament  for  an 
annual  subsidy  so  as  dispense  with  the  necessity  of  sub- 
scriptions. The  managers  of  the  London  Vaccine  Insti- 
tution, learning  what  was  on  foot,  naturally  argued  that 
if  Government  was  to  be  thus  propitious,  it  was  they 
who  had  the  better  claim  to  assistance,  and  therefore 
prepared  a  petition  setting  forth  their  exertions  in  spread- 
ing Vaccine  Inoculation.  This  interference  with  their 
scheme  filled  the  Jennerians  with  fury,  and  Mr.  JOHN 
FULLER  undertook  to  speak  their  mind  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  When,  therefore,  on  2nd  June,  1808,  Sir 
THOMAS  TURTON  presented  the  petition,  FULLER  sprang 


VACCINATION  ESTABLISHED  AND  ENDOWED.       251 

to  his  feet  and  denounced  it,  saying  a  grosser  forgery  had 
never  been  submitted  to  the  House. 

The  SPEAKER  interposed.  The  petition  had  not  been 
read.  When  it  was,  the  House  would  be  enabled  to 
judge  of  its  contents.  Mr.  FULLER  resumed  his  seat 
amid  general  laughter.  The  petition  having  been  read — 

Mr.  FULLER  apologised  for  his  abruptness.  The  peti- 
tion was  a  gross  cheat,  a  wicked  trick  to  swindle  the 
public ;  or,  if  it  was  not  absolute  swindling,  it  went  very 
near  the  wind.  When  they  came  to  solicit  his  subscrip- 
tion, he  thought  they  represented  some  respectable  cor- 
poration, but  what  did  they  turn  out  to  be  ?  A  parcel 
of  Quakers,  or  Presbyterians,  or  whatever  else  they  were 
called.  They  had  got  five  guineas  from  him,  but  the 
moment  he  detected  them,  he  threatened  them  with  a 
Bow  Street  officer  and  a  charge  of  swindling,  which  soon 
frightened  them  into  a  re-delivery  of  his  money.  What 
a  shame  it  was  to  see  the  cause  of  such  fellows  espoused 
by  any  man  in  that  House !  He  did  not  suppose  the 
Honourable  Baronet  shared  in  their  gains,  and  he  might 
laugh  as  he  pleased,  and  spout  like  a  lawyer,  but  it  was 
a  poor  way  to  show  himself  off  for  the  sake  of  a  little 
notoriety  among  such  despicable  sectaries.  He  hoped  the 
House  would  not  lend  any  countenance  to  the  imposture. 

Sir  THOMAS  TURTON  good  humouredly  replied,  that 
the  Jennerian  Society,  in  whose  interest  the  preceding 
speaker  exhibited  so  much  untempered  zeal,  was  not 
instituted  till  1803.  The  original  Vaccine  Pock  Institu- 
tion was  established  by  Dr.  Pearson  in  1799.  The 
Institution  to  which  the  petition  referred  was  established 
in  1806,  chiefly  by  members  of  the  Society  of  Friends,  a 
sect  to  whose  virtuous  principles  and  behaviour  it  was 
his  privilege  to  bear  testimony.  Since  1806  the  Institu- 
tion had  communicated  the  vaccine  matter  to  81,000 
persons  in  every  situation  of  life.  The  petitioners  only 
desired  to  have  the  facts  they  adduced  inquired  into,  and 
hoped  for  public  aid  only  in  the  event  of  being  entitled 
to  it  on  public  grounds. 

This  application  for  assistance  by  Walker's  Institution 


252  VACCINATION. 


rendered  its  concession  to  the  Jennerian  Society  im- 
possible :  it  was  not  for  the  Government  to  get  into  hot 
water  by  showing  favour  to  either ;  and  as  both  could 
not  be  subsidised,  it  was  determined  to  vary  the  applica- 
tion, and  to  ask  the  House  of  Commons  to  provide 
means  for  the  maintenance  of  a  new  and  independent 
institution  from  which  "the  Genuine  Vaccine  Virus  could 
be  distributed  without  expense  throughout  the  British 
dominions."  Mr.  GEORGE  ROSE,  Treasurer  to  the  Navy, 
took  charge  of  the  measure,  which  he  introduced  to  the 
House  on  9th  June,  1808.  After  dealing  with  a  notori- 
ous failure  of  Vaccination  at  Ringwood,  he  proceeded  to 
observe,  that  whilst  it  could  no  longer  be  said  that 
Vaccination  was  a  certain  security  against  Smallpox  in 
all  cases,  yet  the  evidence  showed  that  the  failures  were 
not  one  in  300.  He  would  therefore  move  that  the 
House  having  the  testimony  of  the  Colleges  of  Physicians 
and  Surgeons  of  London,  Edinburgh,  and  Dublin,  that 
Vaccination  was  salutary  and  generally  effective,  it  is 
desirable  that  a  Central  Institution  be  formed  for  the 
provision  and  distribution  of  Real  Vaccine  Matter,  and 
that  its  administration  be  committed  to  the  Royal 
Colleges  of  Physicians  and  Surgeons  in  London.  The 
expense  would  not  be  more  than  £2500  or  £3000  per 
annum. 

Mr.  DAVIES  GIDDY  said  he  should  not  oppose  the 
resolution,  but  it  would  have  been  much  better  to  have 
refrained  from  interference.  The  people  would  neglect 
inoculation,  and  then  smallpox  would  break  out  with 
tenfold  severity. 

Mr.  FULLER  observed  that  Smallpox  had  been  annihi- 
lated in  Calcutta  by  systematic  and  enforced  Vaccination, 
and  he  believed  the  same  result  was  attainable  in  this 
country.  He  thought  that  even  those  who  hesitated  to 
resort  to  general  compulsion,  would  not  object  to  the 
Vaccination  of  all  children  in  workhouses. 

Sir  T.  TURTON  would  have  preferred  a  committee  of 
investigation.  There  were  already  three  Institutions  in 
London  for  the  express  purpose  of  propagating  cowpox, 


VACCINATION  ESTABLISHED  AND  ENDOWED.       253 

and  the  object  Mr.  Rose  had  in  view  was  more  likely  to 
be  attained  by  private  subscriptions  and  by  assistance 
from  Government  than  by  a  special  Institution  formed 
and  endowed  by  the  State. 

Lord  HENRY  PETTY  contended  that  as  the  evidence 
was  now  confessedly  incomplete  as  to  the  infallible 
efficacy  of  Vaccination,  it  was  highly  proper  that  in- 
vestigation should  be  persevered  in  under  the  eye  of 
the  public  instead  of  by  a  number  of  small  institutions 
which  were  not  perhaps  altogether  exempt  from  the 
imputation  of  being  guided  by  mercenary  motives. 

Sir  FRANCIS  BURDETT  said  Vaccination  appeared  before 
them  with  a  complexion  widely  differing  from  that  origin- 
ally assumed.  A  short  time  ago  they  were  assured  it  was 
an  infallible  preventive  of  Smallpox,  and  that  its  practice 
was  so  simple  that  any  old  woman  was  equal  to  it.  Now 
they  were  told  that  it  was  a  very  nice  operation  requiring 
great  judgment  and  skill,  the  want  of  which  was  held  to 
account  for  the  many  failures  which  had  occurred.  Thus 
there  was  neither  that  simplicity  nor  security  which  was 
originally  asserted.  Considering  these  manifest  discrep- 
ancies between  promise  and  practice,  it  was,  he  thought, 
most  unwise  for  the  House  to  intervene  in  order  to  help 
what  appeared  to  be  a  failing  experiment.  They  ought 
to  be  cautious — they  ought  not  to  prop  up  what  might 
prove  to  be  pernicious  error.  Government  in  this  free 
country  cannot  compel  people  to  submit  to  the  prescrip- 
tions of  physicians,  or  the  operations  of  surgeons,  or 
anything  except  the  laws ;  and  it  was  doubtful  whether 
science  itself  would  be  benefitted  if  placed  under  Govern- 
ment direction.  They  were  referred  to  the  reports  of 
the  Medical  Colleges,  but  as  he  read  these  reports  he 
detected  much  hesitation  and  evasion,  and  anything  but 
the  assurance  displayed  on  behalf  of  Vaccination  by 
several  members  of  the  House.  Many  instances  of  fail- 
ure were  admitted,  and  such  instances  might  safely  be 
doubled.  As  for  Spurious  Cowpox  he  wished  to  know 
what  it  was.  It  was  used  to  account  for  all  mishaps, 
and  it  was,  he  suspected,  a  mere  shift,  shuffle,  and  get-off. 


254  VACCINATION. 

[Sir  Francis  need  not  have  spoken  thus  dubiously,  for  the 
Report  of  the  Physicians  admitted  what  he  suspected.] 
He  would  much  prefer  a  committee  of  investigation,  and 
hoped  the  resolution  would  not  be  pressed. 

Mr.  WILBERFORCE  brought  up  the  foreign  argument. 
There  might  be  failures  at  home,  but  these  could  be  satis- 
factorily accounted  for.  It  was  for  them  to  consider  the 
magnificent  successes  of  Vaccination  in  other  lands  [Omne 
ignotum  pro  magnifico  est],  concerning  which  there  was 
no  room  for  doubt.  He  saw  no  surer  method  of  inspiring 
the  public  with  confidence  in  Vaccination  than  by  the 
establishment  of  the  proposed  Institution. 

Mr.  ROSE  explained  that  he  merely  wished  to  bring 
the  House  to  a  resolution,  leaving  it  to  his  Majesty  [that 
was  to  say,  himself  for  the  Government]  to  give  it  effect. 

Mr.  GEORGE  CANNING,  Secretary  of  State  for  Foreign 
Affairs,  declared  that  though  he  considered  the  discovery  of 
Vaccination  to  be  of  the  greatest  importance,  yet  he  could 
not  imagine  any  circumstances  whatever  that  would  in- 
duce him  to  follow  up  the  most  favourable  report  of  its 
infallibility  with  any  measure  for  its  compulsory  infliction. 

This  declaration  of  Canning  is  well  worth  attention 
and  commemoration.  It  serves  to  mark  the  reverence 
for  personal  liberty,  which  was  the  fine  distinction  of 
the  former  order  of  English  statesmen,  and  separated, 
when  little  else  did,  the  English  from  the  Continental 
Tory.  The  noble  tradition  of  this  liberty  meets  with 
scant  favour  in  these  times,  and  Canning's  avowal  in  the 
new  House  of  Commons  would  be  heard  as  an  anachron- 
ism. Nearly  every  adventurer  who  has  a  prescription 
for  the  moral  and  physical  welfare  of  his  fellow  creatures 
hopes  to  have  it  enforced  by  legislation;  and  since,  under 
penalty  of  fine  and  imprisonment,  our  babes  are  cut  and 
poisoned  to  save  them  from  smallpox,  there  is  no  infrac- 
tion of  personal  liberty,  however  outrageous,  that  can 
now  be  pronounced  impossible. 

When  the  House  divided  there  were  60  for  the  motion 
and  5  against  it — again  a  small  House  for  so  critical  a 
matter. 


VACCINATION  ESTABLISHED  AND  ENDOWED.       255 

With  the  permission  to  spend  £3000  a  year,  the 
National  Vaccine  Establishment  was  constituted,  Jenner 
being  consulted  in  its  organisation.  A  Board  was  formed, 
consisting  of  the  President  and  four  Censors  of  the  Royal 
College  of  Physicians,  and  the  Master  and  two  senior 
Wardens  of  the  College  of  Surgeons.  The  Board  met  on 
8th  December,  ]  808,  and  proceeded  to  business.  Jenner, 
as  was  his  fatality  on  important  occasions,  was  absent, 
being  detained  at  Berkeley  by  family  affliction.  He 
wrote  to  Moore — 

I  should  be  unworthy  of  the  name  of  father  were  I  to  stir  from 
my  children.  Indeed,  nothing  would  make  me,  not  even  a  royal 
mandate,  unless  accompanied  by  a  troop  of  horse. 

Jenner  was  elected  Director,  but  not  a  member  of  the 
Board,  and  immediately  began  to  protest  that  he  was 
disregarded  and  subjected  to  indignity.  "The  Board," 
he  said,  "  appointed  me  Director,  but  they  soon  contrived 
to  let  me  feel  that  I  was  to  be  a  Director  directed"  The 
arrangement  he  had  made  with  Mr.  Rose  and  Sir  Lucas 
Pepys,  the  President  of  the  College  of  Physicians,  was, 
he  held,  altogether  different — 

It  was  stipulated  between  Mr.  Eose,  Sir  Lucas,  and  myself,  that 
no  person  should  take  any  part  in  the  Vaccinating  Department 
who  was  not  either  nominated  by  me  or  submitted  to  my  approba- 
tion. On  my  reminding  Sir  Lucas  of  this,  he  replied,  "  You,  Sir, 
are  to  be  whole  and  sole  Director.  We  [meaning  the  Board]  are 
to  be  considered  as  nothing.  What  do  we  know  of  Vaccination."  * 

Sir  Lucas  of  course  was  jeering,  but  Jenner's  head  was 
so  turned  with  vanity  and  flattery  that  he  could  not 
distinguish  mockery  from  sincerity.  He  had  constructed 
for  himself  a  fool's  paradise,  out  of  which  the  Board 
pitched  him  unceremoniously.  He  recommended  his 
bludgeon  bearer,  John  Ring,  for  Chief  Vaccinator  and 
Inspector  of  Stations,  but  the  Board  declined  to  have 
anything  to  do  with  him,  and  added  insult  to  contempt ; 
for  in  Jenner's  words,  written  in  the  third  person — 

*  Letter  to  JAMES  MOORE,  IQth  January,  1809. 


256  VACCINATION. 


They  appointed  a  gentleman  in  his  place  who  was  taken  from  an 
Institution  which  had  been  personally  hostile  to  Dr.  Jenner  on  all 
occasions. 

Subsequently  he  sent  in  a  list  of  seven  names  for  Sub- 
Vaccinators,  of  which  the  Board  rejected  five,  which 
brought  matters  to  a  crisis,  and  he  resigned.  In  the 
memorandum,  from  which  I  have  quoted,  he  wrote — 

By  the  whole  of  these  circumstances,  Dr.  Jenner  felt  himself 
under  the  necessity  of  withdrawing  from  the  establishment.  He 
could  take  upon  himself  no  responsibility  where  he  had  no  power, 
not  even  a  vote.  He  did  not  wish  to  control  the  establishment ; 
nothing  was  further  from  his  thoughts.  But  he  expected  that  the 
practical  part  of  its  concerns  would  have  been  under  his  direction, 
as  the  title  of  his  office  implied ;  and  he  expected  that  those  gentle- 
men whom,  from  a  consciousness  of  their  pre-eminent  ability,  he 
had  so  strongly  recommended  to  conduct  this  practical  part,  would 
have  been  appointed.  But  as  his  recommendations  have  been 
disregarded — as  arrangements  and  appointments  have  been  made 
which  are  contrary  to  his  judgment,  and  as  he  is  informed  by  the 
Board  that  it  was  intended  for  them  to  use  their  own  discretion, 
and  that  they  alone  are  responsible  for  the  conduct  of  the  establish- 
ment, Dr.  Jenner  declined  accepting  the  station  of  Director,  to 
which  they  had  nominated  him,  since  he  found  that  he  was  to  have 
nothing  to  do  in  the  establishment,  and  that  his  office  was  only  a 
name.* 

To  those  who  did  not  know  Jenner,  'or  who  accepted 
him  at  his  own  estimate,  the  treatment  to  which  he  was 
subjected  might  appear  reprehensible;  but  the  Board 
understood  their  man,  and  only  cared  to  have  the  benefit 
of  his  name,  for  little  else  was  worth  having.  What 
could  be  made  of  a  character  indolent  and  untrustworthy; 
who  disliked  London  and  was  off  to  Gloucestershire  on 
any  pretext;  whose  sickly  family  had  from  him  the 
supreme  consideration  of  an  affectionate  mother !  He 
wrote  to  Moore — 

I  agree  with  you  that  my  not  being  a  member  of  the  British 
Vaccine  Establishment  will  astonish  the  world ;  and  no  one  in  it 
can  be  more  astonished  than  myself. 

He  was  mistaken.  The  world,  so  far  as  it  thought  at 
all,  considered  he  was  handsomely  rewarded  with  his 

*  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  ii.  p.  124. 


VACCINATION  ESTABLISHED  AND  ENDOWED.       257 


£30,000,  and  with  so  much  public  money  in  his  pocket 
might  have  looked  for  a  better  disposition  on  his  part. 
When  his  nominations  were  disregarded,  he  declined  even 
to  come  to  London,  and  thus  excused  his  sulking  at 
Berkeley — 

I  was  quite  in  earnest  at  the  time  I  informed  you  of  my  intention 
to  come  to  town,  but  while  I  was  getting  things  in  order  there 
came  a  piece  of  information  from  a  Eight  Hon.  Gentleman  which 
determined  me  to  remain  in  my  retirement.  It  was  as  follows — 

That  the  Institution  was  formed  for  the  purpose  of  a  full  and 
satisfactory  investigation  of  the  benefits  or  dangers  of  the  Vaccine 
Practice,  and  that  this  was  the  reason  why  Dr.  Jenner  could  not 
be  admitted  as  one  of  the  conductors  of  it,  as  the  public  would  not 
have  the  same  confidence  in  their  proceedings  as  %f  the  Board  were 
left  to  their  own  judgment  in  doubtful  cases. 

This  is  the  sum  and  substance  of  the  communication — 

What  do  we  know  of  Vaccination  ? 

We  know  nothing  of  Vaccination  ! 

Alas !  poor  Vaccinia,  how  art  thou  degraded ! 

You  intimated  something  of  this  sort  to  me  some  time  since,  and 
now  I  get  it  from  the  fountain  head.  An  institution  founded  on 
the  principle  of  inquiry  seven  or  eight  years  ago,  would  have  been 
worthy  of  the  British  nation ;  but  now,  after  the  whole  world 
bears  testimony  to  the  safety  and  efficacy  of  the  Vaccine  Practice, 
I  do  think  it  a  most  extraordinary  proceeding.  It  is  one  that 
must  necessarily  degrade  me,  and  cannot  exalt  the  framers  of  it  in 
the  eyes  of  common-sense.  I  shall  now  stick  closely  to  my  own 
Institution,  which  I  have  the  pride  and  vanity  to  think  is  para- 
mount to  all  others,  as  its  extent  and  benefits  are  boundless.  Of 
this  I  am  the  real  and  not  the  nominal  Director.  I  have  conducted 
the  whole  concern  for  no  inconsiderable  number  of  years,  single- 
handed,  and  have  spread  Vaccination  round  the  globe.  This 
convinces  me  that  simplicity  in  this,  as  in  all  effective  machinery, 
is  best.* 

In  the  discussion  in  the  House  of  Commons  it  was 
stated  by  his  friend,  Lord  Henry  Petty,  that  one  of  the 
objects  of  the  Establishment  would  be  investigation,  and 
it  was  absurd  for  Jenner  to  pretend  that  the  fact  came 
upon  him  as  a  revelation ;  and,  unless  completely  blinded 
by  conceit,  he  must  have  recognised  that  the  general 
faith  in  Vaccination  exhibited  in  1801  had  been  much 

*  Letter  to  JAMES  MOORE,  4th  April,  1809.  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner, 
vol.  ii.  p.  126. 

17 


258  VACCINATION. 


shaken  by  the  experience  of  the  succeeding  seven  years. 
But  it  is  idle  to  argue  the  matter.  When  Jenner  could 
say  that  he  single-handed  had  conducted  the  whole  con- 
cern for  years  and  spread  Vaccination  round  the  globe, 
he  could  assert  anything.  The  letter  is  interesting  chiefly 
as  an  exhibition  of  character. 

We  shall  return  to  the  National  Vaccine  Establishment 
and  its  management — a  curious  story.  Suffice  it  for  the 
present  to  observe,  that  its  immediate  effects  were  adverse 
to  Vaccination.  The  annual  endowment  was  consumed 
in  salaries,  and  many  ceased  to  subscribe  to  the  Cowpox 
Societies  since  Vaccination  was  so  well  provided  for. 
The  essential  mischief  consisted  in  the  recognition  of  the 
evil  practice  by  the  State,  whereby  it  has  been  perpetuated 
to  the  common  injury  to  our  own  day. 

THE   ORIGINAL   VACCINE  POCK  INSTITUTION. 

The  national  endowment  of  Vaccination  afforded  a 
convenient  pretext  for  closing  this  Institution,  founded 
by  Dr.  Pearson  and  his  friends  in  1799;  but  some  said  the 
true  reason  was  involved  in  the  following  resolutions — 

VACCINE  POCK  INSTITUTION, 

Broad  Street,  Golden  Square. 

GENERAL  QUARTERLY  COURT,  Nov.  5,  1805. 

Resolved — That  according  to  the  experience  of  the  medical  estab- 
lishment of  this  Institution,  it  appears  that  the  Inoculation  for  the 
Cowpock  affords  security  against  the  Smallpox  equally  with  Vari- 
olous  Inoculation,  and  that  the  new  practice  possesses  all  the  advan- 
tages already  stated  to  the  public. 

Resolved — That,  in  order  to  give  a  further  proof  to  the  public, 
and  to  afford  an  inducement  for  information  adverse  to  the  new 
practice,  the  following  proposal  be  made  public,  viz.: — That,  in 
future,  every  patient  who  shall  be  vaccinated  at  this  Institution, 
on  discharge,  shall  receive  a  Certificate,  stating  that  such  patient 
has  gone  through  the  Cowpock,  and  engaging  that  if  hereafter  the 
said  patient  shall  take  the  Smallpox,  he  or  she  shall  be  entitled  to 
the  sum  of  Five  Guineas,  to  be  paid  from  the  funds  of  this  Institu- 
tion at  the  first  General  Court,  after  the  proofs  have  been  given, 
according  to  the  rules  of  the  medical  establishment. 

WILLIAM  SANCHO,  Secretary, 

The  offer  attested  the  sincerity  of  the  conductors  of 
the  Institution,  but  so  many  patients,  it  is  said,  laid  claim 


HORSEGREASE  AS  A  SOURCE  OF  VACCINE.          259 

to  Five  Guineas  that  it  was  not  without  satisfaction  that 
a  reasonable  cause  was  afforded  for  shutting  up. 

Dr.  Pearson  held  that  it  was  impossible  to  be  re-vac- 
cinated. He  argued  that  since  no  one  could  have  Small- 
pox twice,  no  one  could  have  the  equivalent  of  Smallpox, 
namely  Cowpox,  twice.  It  was  a  logical  contention; 
but  facts  did  not  correspond  to  the  logic.  Pearson  also 
objected  to  the  Yariolous  Test,  or  inoculation  with  Small- 
pox after  inoculation  with  Cowpox  to  prove  that  the 
constitution  was  fortified  against  attack.  He  preferred 
Cowpox  to  Smallpox  for  the  purpose,  as  milder  and  less 
liable  to  dangerous  results.  He  found  that  after  Cowpox 
it  was  impossible  to  have  Cowpox — at  least  immediately. 
Hence  he  was  confirmed  in  his  opinion  that  Cowpox 
after  Cowpox  was  impossible;  just  as  others  argued  on 
the  same  grounds  that  Smallpox  after  Cowpox  was  im- 
possible. Yet  at  this  day  none  doubt  that  Pearson  was 
in  error ;  for  all  believe  in  the  possibility  of  re- Vaccina- 
tion, or  Cowpox  after  Cowpox;  likewise  of  Smallpox 
after  Cowpox. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

HORSEGREASE  AS  A  SOURCE   OF   VACCINE. 

IN  order  to  complete  the  account  of  Jenner's  awards  and 
the  adoption  of  Vaccination  by  Parliament,  I  have  passed 
over  several  matters  of  interest  and  significance,  which  I 
shall  now  proceed  to  deal  with,  commencing  with  the 
tactics  of  our  hero  in  relation  to  Horsegrease. 

In  his  Inquiry,  published  in  1798,  Jenner  set  forth 
Horsegrease  as  the  origin  of  that  form  of  Cowpox,  which, 
when  inoculated  on  the  human  subject,  ensured  life-long 
security  from  Smallpox.  Many  attempts  were  conse- 
quently made  to  produce  pox  on  the  teats  of  cows  by 
inoculating  them  with  Horsegrease,  but  in  vain ;  and  the 
possibility  became  discredited.  Moreover,  the  notion  of 


260  VACCINATION. 

inoculation  with  Horsegrease,  either  immediately  or 
through  the  cow,  was  disliked  intensely.  It  was  pro- 
nounced repulsive.  Why  virus  from  horses'  heels  should 
be  more  repulsive  than  virus  from  cows'  teats  was  not 
explained ;  but,  as  we  know,  there  is  no  accounting  for 
tastes.  Many  who  eat  beef  with  relish  would  start  with 
disgust  from  horse-flesh.  A  story  is  told  of  a  Wesley  an 
who  rebuked  a  sister  for  wearing  feathers  in  her  hat, 
and  was  sharply  referred  to  the  existence  of  flowers  in 
her  own.  "  Yes,  sister  dear,"  was  the  cogent  reply,  "  but 
we  must  draw  the  line  somewhere,  and  it  is  drawn  at 
feathers."  The  line  was  drawn  at  Horsegrease,  and  the 
origin  of  Cowpox  as  asserted  by  Jenner  and  his  country 
acquaintance  was  conveniently  denied.  Jenner  was  not 
slow  to  perceive  how  the  wind  of  opinion  was  blowing, 
and  let  Horsegrease  drop.  He  said  not  a  word  about  it 
in  his  petition  to  Parliament  in  1802,  nor  did  he  again 
advance  it  as  a  reason  for  consideration. 

Now,  why  was  this  ?  Was  it  because  he  had  ceased 
to  believe  that  Cowpox  originated  in  Horsegrease  ?  Not 
at  all !  Why,  then,  did  he  not  vindicate  his  opinion  and 
confront  vulgar  prejudice  ?  Simply  because  he  had  the 
wit  to  discern,  that  whilst  he  might  get  something  out  of 
the  national  purse  for  the  Cowpox  recipe,  he  could  get 
nothing  for  the  Horsegrease  one.  As  Dr.  Pearson  ob- 
served, "  The  very  name  of  Horsegrease  was  like  to  have 
wrecked  the  whole  concern " — an  observation  that  Dr. 
Mason  Good  confirms  in  saying,  "  The  mere  idea  of  using 
the  matter  of  grease  from  the  horse's  heel  excited  from 
the  first  so  deep  and  extensive  a  disgust  that  Cowpox 
Inoculation  had  nearly  fallen  a  sacrifice  from  the  sup- 
posed union  of  the  two  diseases." 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  I  am  censuring  Jenner  as 
a  tradesman.*  If  any  of  us  had  two  patents  for  sale, 

*  As  tradesman,  however,  Jenner  was  not  honest.  He  took  to  market 
what  was  not  his  to  sell.  The  introduction  of  Cowpox  for  inoculation 
(stigmatised  in  The  Inquiry  as  spurious,  not  being  derived  from  Horse- 
grease)  was  effected  by  Pearson,  and  Jenner's  claim  to  it  was  an  act  of 
piracy. 


HORSEGREASE  AS  A  SOURCE  OF  VACCINE.          261 

we  should  be  great  fools  if  we  declined  to  take  £30,000 
for  one  without  the  other,  or  suffered  one  to  prejudice 
the  other,  or  tried  to  inflict  any  doctrine  about  them 
upon  the  purchaser.  It  is  for  those  who  go  to  market  to 
adapt  themselves  to  the  market,  and  remember  that 
sellers  were  made  for  buyers,  and  not  buyers  for  sellers. 
Since  then  the  public  were  ready  to  pay  for  Cowpox, 
whilst  they  shuddered  at  Horsegrease,  it  was  not  for 
Jenner  to  force  Horsegrease  upon  them. 

Such  is  mercantile  logic ;  and  on  its  own  conditions  it 
is  irrefragable ;  but  it  is  not  the  custom  to  deal  with 
Jenner  as  a  tradesman,  but  as  a  man  of  science,  and  to 
range  him  with  great  discoverers,  inventors,  and  bene- 
factors of  mankind;  and  here  it  is  that  I  decidedly 
demur.  What,  I  ask,  did -he  discover?  He  did  not 
discover  that  Cowpox  prevented  Smallpox :  that  was  the 
dairy-maids'  faith.  He  did  not  discover  that  Horse- 
grease  prevented  Smallpox :  that  was  the  farriers'  faith. 
He  did  not  discover  that  Horsegrease  on  milkers'  hands 
begot  pox  on  cows'  teats :  that  was  the  farmers'  belief. 
He  did  not  discover  that  inoculated  virus  could  be  con- 
veyed from  arm  to  arm :  that  was  an  existing  practice. 
What  then  did  he  discover  ?  He  discovered  nothing. 
He  did  no  more  than  take  the  vulgar  opinion  of  his 
neighbourhood  to  the  London  market.  He  made  a  few 
perfunctory  experiments  by  way  of  confirmation,  adver- 
tised them  in  a  book,  and  by  good  or  ill  luck  the  notion 
was  caught  up,  and  worked  to  practical  issues,  chiefly  by 
Pearson,  who  thereby  incurred  the  full  malignity  of 
Jenner's  jealousy. 

The  distinction  between  a  man  of  science  and  a  trades- 
man is  this,  that  the  mind  of  the  one  is  set  on  the 
extraction  of  truth  and  the  other  on  the  extraction  of 
profit.  The  man  of  science  does  not  inquire  what  the 
public  may  be  pleased  to  know  and  pay  for,  but  he 
ascertains  and  defines  what  is  fact,  and  leaves  the  public 
to  adjust  themselves  thereto  as  they  may  find  convenient. 
If  they  recognise  the  truth  communicated,  it  is  well  for 
them ;  if  they  dislike  or  deny  the  truth,  it  is  ill  for  them  ; 


262  VACCINATION. 


but  well  or  ill,  the  man  of  science  is  the  disinterested 
expositor  of  what  he  knows  to  be  true ;  not  unfrequently, 
when  his  revelation  vitally  affronts  popular  prejudice, 
realising  the  blessing  of  those  who  are  persecuted  for 
righteousness'  sake. 

What  therefore  I  maintain  concerning  Jenner  is,  that  the 
truth  (as  we  may  presume  he  regarded  it)  he  did  not  fully 
reveal ;  that  what  he  did  reveal,  he  suffered  to  be  derided 
and  denied ;  that  he  was  content  to  take  credit  for  so 
much  of  it  as  was  marketable ;  whilst  his  private  con- 
viction about  Horsegrease  remained  unaffected,  not  only 
in  theory,  but  in  deliberate  practice. 

It  is  for  me  to  establish  these  assertions. 

First,  I  say,  he  did  not  fully  reveal  what  he  knew. 
In  1789  Jenner  inoculated  his  son,  Edward,  an  infant  of 
18  months,  not  with  Cowpox,  or  with  Horsegrease,  but 
with  Swinepox;  and,  according  to  the  evidence  of  his 
own  papers,  the  result  was  perfectly  satisfactory.  The 
child  was  subsequently  inoculated  with  Smallpox  on  five 
or  six  different  occasions,  and  always  without  effect. 
According  to  the  well-known  variolous  test,  he  was  proof 
against  Smallpox.  In  short,  there  was  nothing  that 
Jenner  ever  adduced  in  favour  of  Cowpox  that  was  not 
equally  valid  of  Swinepox.  And  this  Swinepox  experi- 
ment was  made  nearly  ten  years  prior  to  his  advertise- 
ment of  Cowpox  and  Horsegrease.  Why,  I  ask,  did  he 
keep  back  the  truth  about  Swinepox  ?  When  Cowpox 
was  scarce,  and  every  cow-house  was  explored  for  virus, 
why  did  he  not  recommend  Swinepox  as  an  alternative  ? 
Why,  too,  did  he  refrain  from  the  obvious  generalisation, 
that  Cowpox,  Horsegrease,  Swinepox,  and  probably  other 
sorts  of  pox,  generated  fevers,  during  the  prevalence  of 
which  inoculation  with  Smallpox  was  not  apt  to  take  ? 
The  answer  is  plain,  Because  he  had  something  to  sell 
rather  than  something  to  teach. 

In  conformity  with  this  conduct  he  suffered  the  origin 
of  Cowpox  in  Horsegrease,  and  the  specific  virtue  of 
grease  to  be  derided  and  denied.  "  It  was  fortunate  for 
Dr.  Jenner,  and  the  triumph  of  his  discovery,"  wrote  Dr. 


HORSEGREASE  AS  A  SOURCE  OF  VACCINE.          263 

Mason  Good,  "that  a  minuter  attention  to  the  subject 
gave  sufficient  proof  that  there  was  no  foundation  for  his 
opinion  that  Cowpox  originated  in  Horsegrease,  nor  that 
any  connection  existed  between  the  diseases."  *  Such 
was  the  convenient  medical  verdict,  which  Jenner  did 
not  venture  to  disturb,  though  all  the  while  persuaded  of 
its  error.  There  were  failures  to  inoculate  cows  with 
Horsegrease,  but  Thomas  Tanner,  veterinary  surgeon,  of 
Rockhampton,  Gloucestershire,  "  had  the  merit,"  says  Dr. 
Baron,  "  of  proving  the  truth  of  Jenner's  statement."  •(• 
He  succeeded  in  communicating  the  disease  to  the  cow 
from  the  heel  of  the  horse,  producing  on  the  cow's  teat  a 
complete  vaccine  pustule.  "From  handling  the  cow's 
teats,"  said  Tanner,  "  I  became  myself  infected  and  had 
two  pustules  on  my  hand,  which  brought  on  inflamma- 
tion, and  made  me  unwell  for  several  days.  The  matter 
from  the  cow,  and  from  my  own  hand,  proved  efficacious 
in  infecting  both  human  subjects  and  cat  tie."  J  Jenner 
distributed  the  virus  from  Tanner,  and  it  operated  pre- 
cisely like  Cowpox.  But  the  proof  did  not  rest  with 
Tanner:  others  repeated  his  experiment  with  similar 
issues.  Dr.  Loy  of  Whitby  published  in  1801  Some 
Observations  on  the  Origin  of  the  Coivpox,  in  which 
he  confirmed  Jenner's  country  tales,  and  described  how 
(dispensing  with  the  cow)  he  managed  to  inoculate 
patients  with  Horsegrease,  producing  pustules  iden- 
tical with  those  from  Cowpox,  and  subjecting  the  per- 
sons thus  equinated  to  the  variolous  test  with  complete 
impunity.  Yet,  with  so  much  to  fortify  him,  Jenner 
kept  silent.  He  preferred  to  be  adjudged  mistaken 
rather  than  risk  the  forfeit  of  public  favour  and  pay. 
Nor  might  I  blame  him,  had  he  frankly  reasserted  the 
integrity  of  the  Gloucestershire  faith,  and  allowed  that 
since  the  public  were  ready  to  accept  Cowpox  without 
Horsegrease,  it  was  not  for  him  to  stand  in  the  way  of 


*  Study  of  Medicine,  vol.  iii.  p.  59. 

+  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  i.  p.  248. 

J  Treatise  on  the  Cowpox.     By  John  Ring.     P.  336. 


264  VACCINATION. 


their  preference  by  an  obstinate  defence  of  what  was 
non-essential  in  practice. 

But  the  case  for  Horsegrease  was  yet  stronger  than  I  have 
stated.  Dr.  Sacco  of  Milan  was  sometimes  described  as 
"  the  prince  of  vaccinators  "  by  reason  of  his  enthusiasm, 
his  professional  attainments,  and  the  facilities  that  were 
accorded  to  him  in  the  Cisalpine  Republic  of  those  days 
for  universal  vaccination.  He  tried  to  generate  pox  on 
the  cow  with  grease  from  the  horse,  but  failed,  and  in 
1801  reported  to  Jenner  his  failure.  In  1803,  however, 
he  cried,  Eureka !  A  coachman  presented  himself  at  the 
Milan  Hospital  suffering  from  an  eruption  contracted  in 
grooming  a  horse  with  greasy  heels.  He  was  at  once  led 
off  by  Sacco  to  the  Foundling  Asylum,  where  nine  chil- 
dren were  inoculated  from  the  vesicles  on  his  hands.  On 
three  of  the  children  the  inoculation  took,  producing 
vesicles  which  were  pronounced  to  be  the  same  as  those 
resulting  from  Cowpox.  The  virus  was  propagated  from 
arm  to  arm,  and  distributed  in  all  directions.  Dr.  Sacco 
from  thenceforth  avowed  himself  a  Horsegreaser.  "It 
is  now  admitted  and  settled,"  he  wrote  to  Jenner  from 
Milan,  25th  March,  1803,  "  that  grease  is  the  cause  of 
vaccine,  and  we  cannot  too  soon  alter  the  designation  to 
equine." 

Was  the  designation  changed  to  equine  ?  It  was  not, 
nor  was  the  attempt  made.  Those  chiefly  concerned  in 
promoting  vaccination  in  England  would  not  hear  of 
Horsegrease,  and  many  were  ready  to  swear  that  in  the 
matter  of  pox,  the  horse  and  the  cow  had  no  connection 
whatever,  and  that  Jenner  had  too  hastily  assumed  the 
truth  of  a  vulgar  west  country  opinion. 

Dr.  De  Carro  of  Vienna,  who  described  himself  as 
Jenner's  friend  and  first  apostle,  having  effected  the 
first  vaccination  on  the  Continent  and  transmitted  the 
first  charge  of  vaccine  to  India,  was  also  a  Horsegreaser. 
Whilst  Jenner  was  judiciously  holding  his  tongue  about 
Horsegrease  in  England,  he  wrote  to  De  Carro  con- 
gratulating him  on  his  success  in  conveying  Cowpox  to 
the  East,  and  ascribing  the  failure  of  the  English 


HORSEGREASE  AS  A  SOURCE  OF  VACCINE.          265 

attempts  to  the  absurd  prejudice  against  Horsegrease, 
which  Dr.  Loy  had,  however,  completely  annihilated. 
Here  are  his  words  under  date,  28th  March,  1803 — 

I  am  confident  that  had  not  the  opponents  of  nay  ideas  of  the 
origin  of  the  disease  been  so  absurdly  clamorous,  particularly  the 
par  nobile  fratrum  [Pearson  and  Woodville] ,  the  Asiatics  would 
long  since  have  enjoyed  the  blessings  of  Vaccination,  and  many  a 
victim  been  rescued  from  an  untimely  grave.  The  decisive  ex- 
periments of  Dr.  Loy  have  silenced  the  tongues  of  these  gentlemen 
lor  ever.* 

How  the  clamorous  opposition  to  Horsegrease  had 
deprived  Hindoos  of  the  earlier  blessing  of  vaccination, 
we  are  left  to  conjecture.  Perhaps  he  meant  that  Horse- 
grease  would  have  borne  transit  to  India  better  than 
Cowpox,  or  that  the  Hindoos  themselves  might  have 
resorted  to  horses  with  greasy  heels. 

In  reply,  22nd  April,  1803,  De  Cairo  wrote  to  Jenner 
commending  his  moderation  in  maintaining  silence  to- 
ward his  antagonists — little  apprehending  the  motives 
of  that  silence.  Pearson's  conduct,  he  thought,  bordered 
on  insanity.  "  I  am  extremely  glad,"  he  continued, 
"  that  you  have  treated  it  with  the  contempt  it  deserves, 
though  I  am  happy  to  see  that  your  friends  have  ex- 
posed his  ridiculous  and  malevolent  designs." 

De  Carro  was  intimate  with  Sacco  of  Milan,  and  from 
him  received  virus  derived  from  Horsegrease,  which  he 
used  indiscriminately  with  Cowpox,  until  in  Vienna  it 
was  unknown  who  were  vaccinated  and  who  equinated.f 

De  Carro  was  also  in  correspondence  with  Dr.  La 
Font,  a  French  physician,  established  at  Salonica,  who 
was  likewise  a  Horsegreaser.  He  discovered  that  the 
Macedonian  farriers  recognised  three  sorts  of  grease  in 
horses,  called  in  general  javart,  and  discriminated  as 
I'eerouelleux,  le  phlegmoneux,  et  la  variolique.  {  With 
the  variolous  grease,  La  Font  inoculated  two  boys,  and 
from  them  other  children,  reproducing  the  experience  of 

*  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  i.  p.  428. 

t  Copeland's  Medical  Dictionary. — Art.  Vaccination. 

$  Histoire  de  la  Vaccination.     Par  Jean  de  Carro.     Vienne,  1804. 


266  VACCINATION. 


Loy  of  Whitby  and  Sacco  of  Milan.  De  Carro  in  com- 
municating La  Font's  success  to  Jenner,  21st  June,  1803, 
observed,  "These  particulars,  I  hope,  will  silence  all 
those  who  still  doubt  the  truth  of  your  doctrine  as  to 
the  connection  of  Grease,  Cowpox,  and  Smallpox" — 
Jenner  holding  that  Smallpox  was  a  malignant  variety 
of  Cowpox,  whilst  Cowpox  came  out  of  Horsegrease. 

Notwithstanding  these  confirmations  and  his  boast 
that  the  opposition  of  Pearson  and  Woodville  was  silenced 
for  ever,  Jenner  suffered  judgment  to  go  against  him. 
He  recognised  that  it  was  expedient  that  the  connection 
between  Horsegrease  and  Cowpox  should  be  denied.  He 
had  his  bill  to  settle  with  the  English  public,  and  it  was 
not  for  him  to  make  difficulties.  A  curious  evidence  of 
how  thoroughly  the  unpopular  truth  was  suppressed  is 
furnished  by  Dr.  Willan's  treatise  On  Vaccine  Inocula- 
tion, published  in  1806.  There  is  not  a  word  or  hint  in 
it  concerning  Horsegrease.  The  treatise  was  the  work 
of  a  competent  physician,  who  set  forth  what  was  known 
of  vaccination  (from  the  standpoint  of  belief)  with  ful- 
ness and  clearness,  accompanied  with  an  appendix  of 
letters  and  reports  from  Jenner  himself,  from  Pearson 
and  other  experts  in  the  new  practice — but  as  to  Horse- 
grease,  the  silence  was  absolute.  How  the  disagreeable 
truth  was  so  effectually  covered  up  is  more  than  I  can 
account  for.  It  was  not  mentioned  in  the  debates  in 
Parliament,  nor  was  it  referred  to  in  the  reports  of  the 
Colleges  of  Physicians  and  Surgeons,  nor  did  the  op- 
ponents of  vaccination  use  it  with  the  force  that  might 
have  been  expected.  One  explanation  is,  that  Jenner's 
Inquiry  never  entered  into  general  circulation,  that  no 
popular  edition  ever  appeared,  and  that  it  was  chiefly 
known  at  second  hand.  The  leading  representatives  of 
vaccination,  moreover,  so  boldly  disowned  Horsegrease 
and  Jenner's  authority  in  ascribing  Cowpox  to  its  par- 
entage, that  there  was  little  use  in  charging  them  with 
it ;  whilst  all  the  while  Jenner  offered  no  open  resistance 
to  those  who  contemned  him  for  one  mistake,  but  ex- 
hausted the  language  of  adulation  on  his  imputed  merit. 


HORSEGREASE  AS  A  SOURCE  OF  VACCINE.          267 

Thus  we  suppose  it  came  to  pass  that  at  the  end  of 
twenty  years  Dr.  Mason  Good,  as  the  exponent  of  or- 
thodox medical  faith,  felt  justified  in  asserting  that 
there  was  no  foundation  for  the  opinion  that  Cowpox 
originated  in  Horsegrease,  nor  that  any  connection  ex- 
isted between  the  diseases,  and  that  it  was  fortunate  for 
Jenner  and  the  triumph  of  his  discovery  that  the  fact 
was  so. 

Jenner  was  silenced,  but  was  he  convinced  ?  How 
could  he  be  convinced  ?  Horsegrease  as  the  origin  of 
Cowpox  might  be  voted  detestable  and  impossible,  but 
there  was  the  evidence  of  the  country  folk,  confirmed 
by  Tanner,  Loy,  Sacco,  De  Carro,  and  La  Font;  and 
though  a  weak  man  may  be  put  down,  or  think  it  worth 
while  to  be  accounted  mistaken,  yet,  in  the  stillness  of 
his  mind,  he  knows  that  facts  are  facts  whatever  may 
be  said  to  the  contrary.  When,  therefore,  Jenner  had 
filled  his  purse,  obtaining  all  he  could  expect  from  public 
favour,  and  was  clear  of  London,  and  the  oppression  of 
its  savants,  he  reverted  to  his  first  opinion  as  true — true 
and  untrue,  true  with  a  distinction,  which  I  shall  pre- 
sently define.  Writing  to  James  Moore,  Director  of  the 
National  Vaccine  Establishment,  from  Berkeley,  on  23rd 
July,  1813,  he  observed — 

You  seem  not  perfectly  satisfied  that  the  origin  of  vaccine  is 
clearly  made  out.  For  my  part,  I  should  think  that  Loy's  experi- 
ments were  sufficient  to  establish  it,  to  say  nothing  of  Sacco's  and 
others  on  the  Continent.  However,  I  have  now  fresh  evidence, 
partly  foreign  and  partly  domestic.  The  latter  comes  from  Mr. 
Melon,  a  surgeon  of  repute  at  Lichfield.  He  has  sent  me  some  of 
his  equine  virus,  which  I  have  been  using  from  arm-to-arm  for  two 
months  past,  without  observing  the  smallest  deviation  in  the  pro- 
gress and  appearance  of  the  pustules  from  those  produced  by  the 
vaccine.* 

And  in  a  subsequent  note  of  1st  August,  he  repeated— 

DEAR  MOORE, — I  have  been  constantly  equinating  for  some 
months,  and  perceive  not  the  smallest  difference  between  the 
pustules  thus  produced  and  the  vaccine.  Both  are  alike,  because 
they  come  from  the  same  source. -f- 

*  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  ii.  p.  388.         t  Ib.  p.  388. 


268  VACCINATION. 


To  Moore  again  lie  wrote  from  Cheltenham,  27th 
October,  1813— 

I  am  sorry  you  have  not  succeeded  in  infecting  a  cow.  I  have 
told  you  before  that  the  matter  which  flows  from  the  fissures  in 
the  horse's  heels  will  do  nothing.  [Note  the  observation  placed  in 
italics.]  The  virus  is  contained  in  vesicles  on  the  edges  and  the 
surrounding  skin. 

Did  I  ever  inform  you  of  the  curious  result  of  vaccinating  carters  ? 
From  their  youth  these  men  have  the  care  of  horses  used  for  plough- 
ing our  corn  lands ;  and  great  numbers  have  come  to  me  from  the 
hills  to  be  vaccinated,  but  the  half  have  proved  insusceptible.  On 
inquiry,  many  of  them  have  recollected  having  sores  on  their  hands 
and  fingers  from  dressing  horses  affected  with  sore  heels,  and  being 
so  ill  as  to  be  disabled  from  work ;  and  on  several  of  their  hands, 
I  have  found  the  cicatrix  as  perfect  and  characteristically  marked 
as  if  it  had  arisen  from  my  own  vaccination.* 

Then  we  have  a  memorandum  of  Jenner's,  dated  1st 
April,  1817,  wherein  he  thus  traces  the  course  of  the 
virus — 

Eise  and  progress  of  the  equine  matter  from  the  farm  of  Allen  at 
Wansell.  From  a  horse  to  Allen ;  from  Allen  to  two  or  three  of 
his  milch  cows ;  from  the  cows  to  James  Cole,  a  young  man  who 
milked  at  the  farm ;  from  James  Cole  to  John  Powell  by  inocula- 
tion from  a  vesicle  on  the  hand  of  Cole ;  and  to  Anne  Powell,  an 
infant ;  from  Powell  to  Samuel  Eudder ;  from  Eudder  to  Sophia 
Orpin,  and  to  Henry  Martin  ;  from  H.  Martin  to  Elizabeth  Martin. 
All  this  went  on  with  perfect  regularity  for  eight  months,  when 
the  virus  became  intermixed  with  other  matter,  so  that  no  journal 
was  kept  afterwards.  Proof  was  obtained  of  the  patients  being 
duly  protected! — 

Which  was  to  say,  that  they  were  subsequently  inoculated 
with  Smallpox  without  effect.  Among  Jenner's  papers, 
there  were  other  entries  to  the  same  purpose,  thus — • 

17th  May,  1817. — Took  matter  from  Jane  King  (equine  direct) 
for  the  National  Vaccine  Establishment.  The  pustules  beautifully 
correct.^ 

This  equine  virus  from  Jane  King  was  extensively 
diffused.  It  was,  we  see,  sent  to  London;  it  was  also 
sent  to  Edinburgh  ;  §  and  Dr.  Baron  says  he  had  supplies 

*  Baron's  Life  ofJenner,  vol.  ii.  p.  390. 
t  Ib.  p.  226.  J  Ib.  p.  226. 

§  Account  of  Varioloid  Epidemic  in  Edinburgh.  By  John  Thomson. 
London,  1830. 


HORSEGREASE  AS  A  SOURCE  OF  VACCINE.          269 


of  it  for  use  in  the  Gloucester  Infirmary.  Baron  relates 
that  in  the  following  year  he  was  able  to  return  the  gift, 
having  obtained  virus  from  the  hands  of  a  boy  infected 
directly  from  the  horse.  Here  is  Jenner's  acknowledg- 
ment of  the  present,  dated  25th  April,  1818 — 

My  Dear  Baron, — Yesterday  H.  Shrapnell  brought  me  the  equine 
virus  and  your  drawing,  which  conveys  so  good  an  idea  of  the 
disease,  that  no  one  who  has  seen  it  can  doubt  that  the  vesicles 
contain  the  true  and  genuine  life-preserving  fluid.  I  have  inserted 
some  of  it  into  a  child's  arm  ;  but  I  shall  be  vexed  if  some  of  your 
young  men  at  the  Infirmary  have  not  done  the  same  with  the  fluid 
fresh  from  the  boy's  hand.* 

It  is  surely  unnecessary  to  adduce  further  evidence  of 
what  was  Jenner's  mature  faith  and  deliberate  practice. 
Further,  it  is  manifest  that  to  the  end  of  his  career  he 
held  that  pox  in  the  cow  was  not  only  derived  from 
grease  in  the  horse,  but  that  it  was  exclusively  derived 
from  the  horse,  and,  that  apart  from  the  horse,  Cowpox 
would  cease  to  exist.  Owing  to  the  multiplication  of  vac- 
cination failures,  it  began  to  be  conjectured  that  vaccine 
might  be  worn  out  by  transmission  from  arm-to-arm, 
and  that  a  reversion  feo  the  cow  might  be  expedient; 
and  discussing  the  question  in  a  letter  to  Moore,  dated 
5th  March,  1816,  Jenner  advanced  the  objection — 

If  there  were  a  real  necessity  for  a  renovation,  I  know  not  what 
we  should  do ;  for  the  precautions  of  the  farmers  with  respect  to 
their  horses  have  driven  the  Cowpox  from  their  herds. f 

Why  did  not  Moore  rejoin,  Where  is  the  difficulty  ? 
Suppose  pox  driven  from  the  herds,  what  conceivable 
reason  was  there  for  anxiety  when  the  cow  had  become 
a  demonstrated  superfluity  ? — when,  in  Jenner's  own 
words,  "the  true  and  genuine  life-preserving  fluid" 
might  be  drawn  direct  from  horses'  heels  ?  Except  for 
the  perpetuation  of  imposture,  the  cow  in  the  case  had 
ceased  to  have  any  value  whatever.  But,  as  so  often 
happens  with  quacks,  their  minds  become  so  saturated 


Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  ii.  p.  227.  t  /&.,  p.  399. 


270  VACCINATION. 


with  their  own  humbug  that  there  is  nothing  left  of 
common-sense. 

Having  thus  proved  my  assertions  concerning  Jenner, 
it  may  be  reasonably  asked,  How  was  it  that  some  got 
Cowpox  by  means  of  Horsegrease  when  others  could 
not?  for,  it  may  be  argued,  that  if  Cowpox  issued  straight 
and  invariably  from  inoculated  Horsegrease,  not  even 
the  most  resolute  prejudice  against  Horsegrease  could 
have  permanently  kept  back  the  truth. 

The  answer  is,  that  Cowpox  never  came  out  of  what  is 
commonly  known  as  Horsegrease.  The  statement  made 
by  Jenner  in  his  Inquiry  of  1798  that — 

The  limpid  fluid  which  issues  from  the  small  cracks  or  fissures 
in  the  inflamed  and  swollen  horse's  heel — 

infected  cows  and  begot  pox  was  a  blunder,  which  he 
explicitly  reversed  fifteen  years  afterwards  in  his  letter 
to  Moore  of  27th  October,  1813,  already  cited — 

I  am  sorry  [he  wrote]  you  have  not  succeeded  in  infecting  a 
cow.  I  have  told  you  before  that  the  matter  which  flows  from  the 
fissures  in  the  horse's  heel  will  do  nothing.  It  is  contained  in 
vesicles  and  the  surrounding  skin.* 

Jenner,  we  have  always  to  remember,  was  a  slovenly 
investigator,  not  apt  to  take  pains,  but  apt  to  eke  out 
observation  with  invention.  His  friend,  "honest  Jack 
Baron  of  Gloucester,"  who  himself  inoculated  with  horse 
virus  unmodified  by  the  cow,  actually  wrote  Jenner's  life 
in  two  volumes,  and  not  until  the  work  was  ready  for 
the  binder  did  he  discover  that  he  was  in  error  in  common 
with  his  master  in  ascribing  Cowpox  to  Horsegrease ! 
Such  was  the  intellectual  muddle  in  which  these  prophets 
of  vaccination  operated !  In  a  note  stuck  at  the  end  of 
the  second  volume,  we  have  the  following  amazing  con- 
fession, made,  remember,  in  1838,  fifteen  years  after  the 
chief  conjurer's  death — 

I  take  this  opportunity  of  expressing  my  regret  that  I  have  em- 
ployed the  word  Grease  in  alluding  to  the  disease  in  the  horse. 
Va/riolce  E quince  is  the  proper  designation.  It  has  no  necessary 

*  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  ii.  p.  390. 


HORSEGREASE  AS  A  SOURCE  OF  VACCINE.  271 


connection  with  the  Grease,  though  the  disorders  frequently  co- 
exist. This  circumstance  at  first  misled  Dr.  Jenner,  and  it  has 
caused  much  misapprehension  and  confusion.* 

Here  we  have  the  secret  and  desired  explanation.  It 
was  out  of  Horsepox,  and  not  out  of  Horsegrease,  that 
Cowpox  was  derived,  and  in  confounding  grease  with 
pox,  Jenner  mystified  himself  and  others,  and  obscured 
the  whole  doctrine  of  vaccination.  The  Macedonian 
farriers  who  in  1803  informed  La  Font  that  they  recog- 
nised three  sorts  of  grease,  and  one  of  them  variolous, 
were  more  accurate  observers  than  the  Gloucestershire 
farriers  and  farmers  whose  opinion  Jenner  lazily  retailed. 
Whether  he  had  any  clear  apprehension  of  his  own 
blunder  is  not  apparent.  We  have  seen  how  long  it 
took  his  biographer,  Baron,  to  find  it  out.  This  is  cer- 
tain, that  he  made  no  public  attempt  to  set  right  what 
he  had  so  egregiously  set  wrong,  nor  to  withdraw  the 
statement  in  his  Inquiry  that  Horsegrease  only  acquired 
its  efficacy  against  Smallpox  after  inoculation  on  the  cow. 

Lastly,  we  may  inquire  what  is  the  present  state  of 
opinion  as  to  Horsegrease  and  Cowpox?  When  difficult 
questions  are  asked,  we  usually  turn  to  our  cyclopaedias, 
and  taking  down  Hooper's  Lexicon  Medicum,  8th  ed. 
1848,  Art.  Cowpox,  we  read — 

It  is  now  ascertained  that  the  horse  and  the  cow  each  furnish, 
independently  of  the  other,  a  virus  capable  of  communicating 
genuine  Cowpox  to  the  human  subject. 

Genuine  Cowpox  communicated  by  a  horse  is  surely  a 
bull  of  the  first  magnitude !  The  Encyclopaedia  Brit- 
annica,  8th  ed.  1860,  Art.  Vaccination,  illuminates  us 
thus — 

It  is  now  to  be  regarded  as  an  established  fact,  that  Horsegrease 
and  Cowpox  are  the  same  complaint,  modified  by  the  constitution 
of  the  animals  in  which  they  occur. 

An  established  fact,  indeed  ! — established  in  quicksand ! 

Some   say   the    Gloucestershire   farmers   and   Jenner 

were  correct  in  attributing  Cowpox  to  Horsegrease,  and 

*  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  ii.  p.  456. 


272  VACCINATION. 


that  they  can  only  be  charged  with  mistake  in  nomen- 
clature. When  they  said  Horsegrease,  they  meant 
Horsepox,  not  discriminating  between  maladies  that 
sometimes  occurred  together.  No  one  now  believes  that 
the  affection  recognised  by  veterinarians  as  "grease" 
ever  originated  Cowpox.  The  same  rural  authorities, 
including  Jenner,  held  that  where  there  was  no  Horse- 
pox,  there  could  be  no  Cowpox ;  but,  so  far  as  I  can 
make  out,  that  conclusion  is  surrendered.  Pox  on  the 
horse  may  generate  pox  on  the  cow,  but  the  cow  may 
have  pox  without  the  horse. 

In  this  respect  only  was  Jenner  in  error  [says  Mr.  George 
Fleming,  Army  Veterinary  Inspector] .  The  two  diseases  are 
perfectly  independent  of  each  other.  Cowpox  appears  where 
there  are  no  horses,  or  possible  contact  with  horses  ;  and  may 
affect  a  number  of  cows  in  a  dairy  while  the  horses  are  entirely 
free  from  Horsepox.* 

At  this  point  comes  the  tug  of  war.  If  cows  have 
pox,  how  do  they  contract  the  malady  ?  Speaking  at 
the  London  Conference  on  Animal  Vaccination  in  Decem- 
ber, 1879,  Professor  J.  B.  Simonds,  Principal  of  the 
Royal  Veterinary  College,  said — 

My  contention  is,  that  the  existence  of  Cowpox  has  to  be  proved. 
Jenner's  account  of  the  disease  was  an  illusion.  In  my  experience 
among  animals  for  forty  years,  I  have  never  seen  a  case  of  Cow- 
pox,  and  I  do  not  believe  that  any  form  of  variola  belongs  to  the 
bovine  race.  Sheep  are  afflicted  with  pox,  but  not  cattle.  We 
hear  of  Cowpox,  but  who  ever  heard  of  Bullpox?  And  is  it 
credible  that  a  disease  should  be  confined  to  cows  and  never  attack 
bulls  and  steers  ?  Let  any  one  point  out  an  affection  of  females 
that  does  not  extend  to  the  males  of  the  same  species. 

Professor  Simonds  and  others  believe  that  Cowpox  an 
described  by  Jenner  was  a  parasitic  affection  of  Small- 
pox, probably  communicated  by  milkers ;  and  that 
Ceely,  Badcock,  and  others  did  intentionally,  what 
milkers  had  done  inadvertently,  when  they  inoculated 
cattle  with  Smallpox  in  order  to  create  virus  for  vac- 
cination. On  the  other  hand,  those  who  assert  the 

*  Lancet,  29th  May,  1880,  p.  834. 


HORSEGREASE  AS  A  SOURCE  OF  VACCINE.  273 


independent  existence  of  Cowpox,  hold  no  terms  with 
this  heresy.  As  Dr.  Cameron  says,  "We  can  no  more 
make  Smallpox  into  Cowpox  than  by  stunting  an  oak- 
tree  we  can  make  it  a  gooseberry  bush."  Fortunately  I 
have  no  call  to  pronounce  judgment  on  the  controversy. 
The  more  it  rages,  the  better  I  like  it,  and  if  the  combat- 
ants disposed  of  each  other  as  did  the  Kilkenny  cats, 
I  might  not  be  very  sorry. 

A  last  word  as  to  Horsepox.  There  seems  to  be  little 
doubt  that  when  inoculated  on  man  it  gives  rise  to 
vesicles  indistinguishable  from  those  raised  by  Cowpox. 
In  1863  Professor  Bouley  of  Alfort  produced  pox  on  a 
cow  by  inoculating  it  with  pox  from  a  horse,  and  children 
were  successfully  vaccinated  with  the  virus.  In  the 
Transactions  of  the  Clinical  Society,  Vol.  X.,  Mr.  John 
Langton,  describes  the  case  of  a  groom  who  came  to  St. 
Bartholomew's  Hospital,  20th  March,  1877,  with  an 
eruption  caught  from  a  horse  exactly  like  that  induced 
by  vaccination ;  and  there  could  be  no  question,  says  Mr. 
Langton,  that  the  disease  was  the  same  as  that  described 
by  Jenner  as  grease. 

There  is  much  virus  in  currency  as  vaccine  that  is 
equine,  and  many  of  us  are  equinated  who  suppose  our- 
selves vaccinated ;  and  it  might  be  argued  that  we  have 
been  saved  from  Smallpox  by  reason  of  our  equination. 
Why  with  all  the  notorious  failures  of  vaccination,  and 
of  re-vaccination,  some  of  the  more  audacious  medical 
quacks  do  not  recommend  Horsepox  as  an  infallible 
alternative,  is  not  easy  to  understand.  It  would  be  a 
Napoleonic  stroke;  nor  is  it  improbable  that  before  vac- 
cination is  surrendered  the  attempt  will  be  made.  How 
easily  it  might  be  asserted  that  vaccination  is  a  failure 
in  so  far  as  it  has  lost  the  original  virtue  of  equination, 
that  the  remedy  is  to  dismiss  the  cow  and  revert  to  the 
horse,  from  whose  poxy  heels,  as  the  immortal  Jenner 
observed,  there  issues  "the  true  and  genuine  life-pre- 
serving fluid."  The  oracle  might  be  worked  thus — 

"  Let  us  hear  no  more  of  pure  lymph  from  the  calf,  too 
often,  alas  !  an  illusion.  Sure  and  certain  salvation  from 
18 


274  VACCINATION. 


Smallpox  can  only  be  guaranteed  to  those  inoculated 
with  pure  pox  from  the  horse-  Come  then  to  the  horse, 
the  horse  with  pox  !  Come  quickly  !  Come  yourselves  ! 
Come  with  your  wives  !  Come  with  your  children ! 
Come  and  be  saved  by  Horsepox  from  the  loathsome 
pestilence  that  decimates  the  human  race  and  brings 
myriads  to  untimely  graves  ! " 


CHAPTER    XIX. 

JOHN   BIRCH. 

IT  is  part  of  the  Jennerian  legend  that  the  introduction 
of  vaccination  was  resisted  by  prejudice,  fury  and  fana- 
ticism, and  that  the  practice  made  its  way  by  sheer  force 
of  its  proven  efficacy.  The  statement  is  widely  at  vari- 
ance with  facts.  Vaccination  was  accepted  with  instant 
acclamation  by  the  medical  profession,  the  royal  family, 
and  the  public  as  an  infallible  and  harmless  preventive 
of  smallpox ;  and  the  subsequent  course  of  experience 
was  to  disprove  alike  its  harmlessness  and  infallibility. 
That  in  some  cases  vaccination  was  encountered  with 
absurdity  and  violence  lay  in  the  nature  of  things,  even 
as  it  was  advocated  with  absurdity,  violence  and  pre- 
varication. It  is  always  easy  to  raise  a  laugh  by  the 
exhibition  of  the  extravagance  of  either  side  in  a  hot 
dispute,  but  to  what  purpose  ?  It  would  have  been  no 
cause  for  surprise  if  some  had  been  moved  to  scorn  by 
the  facile  credulity  with  which  Jenner's  magical  pre- 
scription was  so  rashly  accepted,  but  the  world  to  which 
he  appealed  had  no  scientific  acquaintance  with  the  laws 
of  health,  and  it  was  in  nowise  marvellous  that,  con- 
vinced of  the  prophylaxy  of  inoculated  smallpox,  they 
should  have  been  overcome  by  the  plausibility  of  ino- 
culated cowpox.  Yet  were  not  all  overcome,  nor  were 
all  who  resisted  the  popular  craze  furious.  There  was 
John  Birch,  for  example,  surgeon  to  St. Thomas's  Hospital, 


JOHN  BIRCH.  275 


who  with  calmness  and  cogency  steadily  protested  against 
the  introduction  of  "the  new  disease  styled  cowpox:" 
and  we  may  read  his  letters  and  pamphlets  and  fail  to 
note  a  fiery  epithet  or  unkindly  imputation.  People 
who  talk  as  if  all  who  opposed  Jenner  were  steeped  in 
ignorance  and  perversity  can  know  nothing  of  John 
Birch. 

Although  satisfied  with  variolous  inoculation,  he  had 
no  objection  to  vaccination  in  itself.  He  thought  it  fair 
that  experiments  with  cowpox  should  be  tried,  and  the 
verdict  of  experience  submitted  to ;  but  he  complained 
that  experience  was  anticipated  and  success  proclaimed 
ere  it  was  possible  for  the  truth  to  be  known,  whilst 
every  objector  was  overwhelmed  with  abuse.  As  an 
illustration  of  the  unwarrantable  persuasion  that  prevailed 
in  favour  of  the  new  practice  before  there  was  time  to 
justify  it,  Birch  mentions  that  at  the  anniversary  dinner 
at  Guy's  Hospital  in  1802,  he  was  surprised  to  find  the 
usual  business  set  aside  to  secure  signatures  to  Jenner's 
petition  for  a  vote  of  money  from  Parliament,  and  that 
after  dinner  toasts,  songs,  and  compliments  in  honour  of 
Vaccinia  were  the  order  of  the  day.  Booksellers,  he 
relates,  declined  to  publish  anything  against  vaccination, 
and  editors  of  newspapers  and  magazines  would  not 
suffer  a  word  to  appear  to  its  disparagement.  Even  the 
Post  Office  carried  the  cowpox  and  correspondence  of 
the  Royal  Jennerian  Society  gratis  until  the  collapse  of 
the  concern  in  1806.  Those  who  resorted  to  doctors  and 
hospitals  for  inoculation  with  smallpox  got  cowpox  in- 
stead in  spite  of  assertions  to  the  contrary.  Church  vied 
with  chapel  in  recommending  the  new  practice.  The 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury  was  called  upon  to  issue  a 
letter  directing  the  clergy  to  recommend  vaccination 
from  the  pulpit,  but,  with  the  wariness  of  office,  sent  his 
chaplain  to  Birch  to  hear  the  other  side,  and  the  chaplain 
retired  with  the  judicious  observation,  "  His  Grace  must 
not  commit  the  Church."  Many  clergymen,  however, 
not  only  preached  vaccination,  but  practised  it  with 
restless  assiduity.  Erasmus  Darwin  was  not  without 


276  VACCINATION. 


hope  that  baptism  and  vaccination  might  be  asso- 
ciated. He  wrote  to  Jenner  from  Derby,  24th  February, 
1802— 

As  by  the  testimony  of  innumerable  instances,  the  Vaccine 
Disease  is  so  favourable  to  young  children,  in  a  little  time  it  may 
occur  that  the  christening  and  vaccination  of  children  may  always 
be  performed  on  the  same  day. 

The  Vaccine  Disease  so  favourable  to  young  children! 
The  assertion  affords  a  vivid  glimpse  of  the  prevalent 
enchantment.  "The  idea  of  connecting  religious  services 
with  vaccination,"  says  Baron,  "  had  occurred  to  several 
individuals  in  this  country  as  well  as  on  the  Continent."  * 

I  viewed  with  indignant  scorn  [wrote  Birch] ,  the  ungenerous 
artifice  adopted  by  the  Jennerian  Society  of  sticking  up  in  every 
Station  House,  in  the  Vestries  of  fanatical  Chapels,  and  in  Sunday- 
Schools,  that  false  Comparative  View  of  the  effects  of  Smallpox 
and  Cowpox  representing  to  the  gaping  multitude  a  frightful  picture 
of  Inoculation  with  the  supposed  misery  attendant  on  it;  and 
exhibiting  representations  equally  false  and  exaggerated  of  the 
blessings  of  Vaccination. 

The  women  were  not  behind  the  clergy  in  diffusing 
vaccine  salvation.  They  were  Jenner's  most  devoted 
allies.  He  took  pains  to  teach  ladies  to  operate  with  "  a 
light  hand "  so  as  not  to  draw  blood,  and  boasted  that 
one  of  his  pupils  had  ten  thousand  patients  to  her  credit, 
rescued  from  the  terror  and  peril  of  smallpox ! 

As  Birch  observed,  it  was  not  a  question  of  medicine 
or  of  surgery  that  he  and  others  had  to  deal  with,  but 
an  outburst  of  enthusiasm  in  which  the  methods  and 
arguments  of  science  were  swept  heedlessly  away.  Any 
testimony  to  the  credit  of  vaccination  was  accepted  with 
alacrity,  whilst  the  facts  to  its  discredit  were  denied  or 
explained  away.  This  recklessness  of  procedure  was 
most  painfully  manifest  in  the  conduct  of  the  Committee 
of  the  House  of  Commons  which  sat  on  Jenner's  first 
petition  for  money  in  1802 — 

*  The  number  of  witnesses  in  support  of  the  application  [wrote 
Birch]  was  40,  but  out  of  the  forty  23  spoke  from  mere  hearsay,  and 

*  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  i.  p.  541. 


JOHN  BIRCH.  277 


not  from  knowledge  acquired  in  practice ;  while  the  three  who  spoke 
against  it  were  heard  impatiently,  though  they  corroborated  their 
evidence  with  proofs. 

Birch  wished  to  know  what  cowpox  was.  Jenner  had 
said  it  was  derived  from  horsegrease,  but  "  that  origin  is 
proved  to  be  erroneous,  and  is  now  given  up,  even  by 
his  best  friends.  On  all  hands  it  is  admitted,"  Birch 
continued,  "  that  it  is  not  a  disease  of  the  cow,  but  com- 
municated to  the  cow  by  the  milker.  No  cow  that  is 
allowed  to  suckle  her  own  calf  ever  has  the  complaint." 
What,  then,  is  the  disease  in  the  milker?  asked  Birch.  Is 
it  smallpox?  Is  it  lues  venerea?  Is  it  itch?  A  man  came 
to  St.  Thomas's  Hospital  from  an  adjacent  dairy  with  a 
hand  and  arm  covered  with  ulcerations.  He  said  several 
of  the  milkers  and  the  cows'  teats  were  affected  in  the 
same  way,  and  he  was  told  they  had  got  cowpox.  Birch 
called  one  of  his  country  pupils  and  asked  him  what  was 
wrong  with  the  man.  "It  is  itch — rank  itch,"  was  his 
reply.  A  box  of  Jackson's  ointment  for  the  itch  was 
given  to  him,  and  at  the.  end  of  a  week  he  reappeared  at 
the  Hospital  cured.  If  cowpox  be  itch,  argued  Birch — 

Then  if  a  patient  be  inoculated  with  the  disorder,  though  it  may 
suspend  the  capacity  for  Smallpox  for  a  season  in  the  constitution, 
it  will  ultimately  prove  no  security — 

Which  was  to  say,  that  it  was  not  probable  that  small- 
pox and  itch  could  occur  together,  and  that  a  person 
inoculated  with  itch  would  pass  through  the  variolous 
test  successfully.  In  this  connection  we  may  recall  the 
fact  that  Jenner  found  it  impossible  to  vaccinate  a  regi- 
ment at  Colchester,  the  men  with  their  women  and 
children  all  being  afflicted  with  itch. 

Still  farther  to  complicate  the  mystery  of  cowpox, 
Jenner  began  to  describe  it  as  genuine  and  spurious,  but 
which  was  the  one  and  which  was  the  other  he  left  in 
bewildering  uncertainty.  Said  Birch — 

Though  Dr.  Jenner  could  not  tell  us  what  Cowpox  was,  he  soon 
came  forward  to  inform  us  that  it  was  of  two  sorts — the  one  genuine 
and  harmless,  the  other  spurious  and  hurtful. 

Spurious  Cowpox  is  a  term  I  do  not  admit  of.     I  know  of  no 


278  VACCINATION. 

such  thing  as  spurious  Smallpox,  spurious  Measles,  spurious  Lues 
Venerea,  spurious  Scrofula. 

Birch's  objection  to  spurious  cowpox  was  forcible,  but 
what  in  the  innocence  of  his  heart  he  took  for  a  blunder 
was  proved  out  of  Jenner's  own  mouth  to  be  a  deliberate 
dodge  in  1807.  Pressed  by  the  Committee  of  the  College 
of  Physicians  to  explain  what  he  meant  by  Spurious 
Cowpox,  he  had  to  own  that  he  knew  nothing  of  such  a 
malady,  and  that  he  had  only  meant  to  describe  irregular 
effects  of  cowpox  on  the  arms  of  the  vaccinated  !  In 
other  words,  when  vaccination  turned  out  badly,  he  had 
found  it  convenient  to  ascribe  the  disaster  to  spurious 
vaccine !  The  policy  revealed  in  this  shameless  avowal 
was  cynically  justified  by  Dr.  Maunsell,  who,  in  a  well 
known  volume,  wrote — 

The  term  imperfect  or  Spurious  Vaccination  is  frequently  to  be 
met  with  in  books,  and  has  been  the  cause  of  no  small  degree  of 
confusion  in  practice,  although,  at  the  same  time,  it  has  frequently 
afforded  the  practitioner  an  excellent  asylum  against  the  storms 
now  and  then  arising  out  of  failures  in  the  protective  power  of 
the  vaccine  disease.* 

From  out  the  muddle  as  to  the  origin  of  cowpox  and 
its  genuine  and  spurious  varieties,  Birch  demanded, 
What  had  Jenner  discovered  ?  It  is  not  that  cowpox 
prevents  smallpox ;  for  that  has  been  asserted  by  dairy- 
folk  for  generations,  and  has  been  disregarded  by 
physicians  because  proved  to  be  untrue.  What  then  is 
it?  Let  him  define  his  discovery  that  we  may  know 
how  to  respect  it.  Let  him  explain  why  it  is  forbidden 
to  inoculate  direct  from  the  cow.  Is  genuine  cowpox 
invisible  and  to  be  taken  on  trust  ?  Or  is  the  disease  so 
virulent  on  its  first  communication  that  it  has  to  be 
meliorated  in  the  body  of  some  victim  ere  it  is  fit  for 
public  use  ?  Birch  asked  these  questions  as  we  continue 
to  ask  What  is  cowpox  ?  Is  it  a  disease  of  the  cow  ?  Or 
is  it  communicated  to  the  cow  by  man  or  by  horse  ? 

*  A  Practical  Treatise  on  the  Management  and  Diseases  of  Children. 
By  Richard  T.  Evanson,  M.D.,  and  Henry  Maunsell,  M.D.,  Professors 
in  the  Royal  College  of  Surgeons,  Ireland.  Dublin,  1838. 


JOHN  BIRCH.  279 


However  definite  the  answers,  the  contradictions  are 
equally  definite,  and  the  authorities  equally  trustworthy. 

Practical  men  answered  for  Jenner,  as  they  presume 
to  answer  at  this  day,  "  Whatever  may  be  the  origin  of 
cowpox,  we  know  that  vaccination  is  harmless,  and  that 
it  prevents  smallpox ;  and  more  we  neither  demand  nor 
care  to  inquire."  The  credulity  and  conceit  of  such  prac- 
tical men  is  that  stupidity  against  which,  says  Goethe, 
even  the  gods  are  powerless.  It  was  practical  men  who 
"on  the  mere  show  of  reason"  accepted  vaccination 
before  it  could  be  tested,  and  on  most  superficial  evidence, 
said  Birch — 

Becommended  Dr.  Jenner  to  the  munificence  of  Parliament  for 
a  discovery  in  practice  which  was  never  to  prove  fatal ;  'which  was 
to  excite  no  new  humours  or  disorders  in  the  constitution ;  which 
was  to  be,  not  only  a  perfect  security  against  Smallpox,  but  would, 
if  universally  adopted,  prevent  its  recurrence  for  ever. 

The  harmlessness  of  the  practice  was  soon  belied — 
It  gave  rise  [wrote  Birch]  to  new  and  painful  disorders.  It  was 
sometimes  followed  by  itchy  eruptions ;  sometimes  by  singular 
ulcerations  ;  and  sometimes  by  glandular  swellings  of  a  nature 
wholly  distinct  from  scrofula,  or  any  other  known  glandular 
disease.  Eruptions  of  the  skin  are  most  frequent,  and  may  be 
heard  of  in  every  parish  of  London  ;  and  whether  Vaccination 
shall  be  called  the  Cow  Evil,  or  the  Jennerian  Evil,  posterity  will 
have  to  determine. 

The  non-fatality  of  the  practice  was  also  speedily 
confuted.  The  disorders  it  excited  caused  numerous 
deaths — from  erysipelas  especially.  It  was  then  said,  as 
it  continues  to  be  said  to  this  day,  "  Yes,  but  it  was  not 
vaccination,  but  erysipelas  the  patient  died  of  " — a  form 
of  words  that  seems  to  satisfy  many  minds  accounted 
rational.  Birch  mentioned  three  or  four  cases  of  death 
resulting  from  vaccination,  and  adds — 

These  cases  were  as  favourably  palliated  and  ingeniously  excused 
as  they  could  be  ;  but  it  is  admitted  that  each  patient  was 
punctured  by  a  lancet  infected  with  what  is  called  Cowpox  ;  each 
arm  so  punctured,  became  inflamed  and  ulcerated,  and  each 
patient  died. 

The  Variolous  Test,  used  so  unscrupulously  to  win 
converts  to  vaccination,  was  proved  by  the  Inocu- 


280  VACCINATION. 


lators  to  be  untrustworthy.  They  had  no  difficulty  in 
variolating  the  vaccinated.  When  it  was  discovered 
that  vaccination  was  no  guard  against  smallpox,  many 
of  the  vaccinated  resorted  to  inoculation  with  smallpox, 
and  they  "took"  as  readily  as  did  their  unvaccinated 
acquaintance.  Five  in  one  family,  the  Hignells  of 
Cheltenham,  vaccinated  by  Jenner  were  variolated  by 
Mr.  Freeman,  and  smallpox  resulted  in  the  ordinary 
course.  Nothing  indeed  became  plainer  than  that  the 
vaunted  Yariolous  Test  was  a  mere  conjuring  trick,  and 
the  more  judicious  vaccinators  ceased  to  refer  to  it. 

The  promise  that  the  vaccinated  would  remain  for  ever 
secure  from  smallpox  Birch  had  no  difficulty  with.  Lon- 
doners vaccinated  by  the  most  approved  operators  caught 
smallpox,  and  died  precisely  as  did  the  unvaccinated. 
"  Every  post,"  said  Birch  in  1804,  "brings  me  accounts  of 
the  failures  of  vaccination."  As  the  failures  multiplied,  so 
did  the  excuses.  There  was  the  prime  excuse  of  genuine 
and  spurious  cowpox.  If  vaccination  failed,  it  could 
only  be  through  the  inadvertent  use  of  spurious  vaccine. 
Jenner  had  taught  that  one  puncture  was  all-sufficient 
for  protection,  but  as  one  was  not  found  effective,  it  was 
asserted  that  two  or  three  were  requisite  for  absolute 
safety.  Many,  it  was  alleged,  had  been  imperfectly 
operated  upon,  and  the  practice  of  the  women  and  clergy 
and  other  busybodies  was  thrown  into  discredit,  although 
at  the  outset  their  services  and  testimonies  had  been 
blazoned  abroad  as  indisputable ;  but  Birch  made  this 
conclusive  answer — 

It  cannot  be  meant  to  class  Mr.  Wachsel,  Apothecary  to  the 
Smallpox  Hospital,  or  Mr.  King,  the  Accoucheur,  among  ignorant 
and  equivocal  practitioners  ;  and  yet  from  the  patients  vaccinated 
by  these  two  persons  I  could  bring  instance  of  more  failures,  more 
deaths,  and  more  diseases  than  have  occurred  in  the  practice  of 
any  other  two  persons  who  have  come  within  my  knowledge. 

Many,  moreover,  who  had  been  vaccinated  by  Jenner 
fell  victims  to  the  disease,  and  he  was  so  pestered  with 
awkward  questions,  says  Birch,  "that  to  avoid  the  per- 
plexing appeals  that  were  made  to  him  daily,  and  the 


JOHN  BIRCH.  281 


messages  that  were  perpetually  sent  requiring  him  to 
visit  untoward  cases,  he  retired  from  London."  Subse- 
quently he  had  to  forsake  Cheltenham  for  the  same 
reason.  The  convictions  of  quackery  were  too  numerous 
for  his  endurance. 

Having  proved  that  vaccination  did  not  prevent  small- 
pox, whilst  it  was  a  frequent  cause  of  illness  and  death, 
Birch  held  up  to  derision  the  fine  promises  wherewith 
its  advocates  had  beguiled  the  people — 

Were  an  architect  to  undertake  to  build  an  edifice  which 
should  be  firm  in  its  foundation;  all  its  rooms  wind  and  water 
tight ;  and  such  as  might  be  inhabited  with  perfect  security ;  if, 
before  the  edifice  were  well  finished,  the  foundations  were  dis- 
covered to  be  rotten  ;  and  if  in  less  than  seven  years,  several 
apartments  had  fallen  in  and  killed  those  who  occupied  them, 
while  in  a  great  number  of  rooms,  the  wind  or  rain  was  continu- 
ally beating  in,  could  I  be  blamed  for  declaring  that  the  architect 
had  broken  his  contract,  and  that  the  edifice  ought  no  longer  to 
be  inhabited  ?  Certainly  not.  "Why  then  am  I  to  be  told  that  I 
am  acting  perversely  when  I  remonstrate  against  the  practice  of 
Cowpox  ?  for  such  an  edifice  as  I  have  described,  so  rotten  in  its 
foundations,  so  ill  built,  so  ruinous,  is  Vaccination. 

Those  who  take  success  as  the  test  of  truth  may  say 
that  Birch  was  unsuccessful  in  his  contention ;  but  he 
was  not  unsuccessful.  Vaccination  in  London  was  dis- 
credited, and  the  imposture  abated,  as  the  report  of  the 
College  of  Surgeons  in  1807  attests.  Where  retained, 
it  was  not  so  much  as  a  preventive  as  a  mitigator  of 
smallpox,  its  advocates  being  content  to  occupy  the  safe 
position  that  it  made  milder  a  disease  the  severity  of 
which  was  unknown. 

Birch  died  in  1815.  His  sister  reprinted  his  papers 
against  vaccination  (from  which  have  come  my  cita- 
tions*), and  erected  a  monument  to  his  memory  in  St. 
Margaret's,  Rood  Lane,  Fenchurch  Street,  the  inscription 
on  which  is  noteworthy. 


*  An  Appeal  to  the  Public  on  the  Hazard  and  Peril  of  Vaccination, 
otherwise  Cowpox,  by  the  late  JOHN  BIRCH,  ESQ.  ,  together  with  his  Serious 
Reasons  for  uniformly  objecting  to  Vaccination :  and  other  Tracts  by  the 
same  Author.  3rd  Edition.  London,  1817. 


282  VACCINATION. 


SACRED 

To  the  Memory  of 

JOHN  BIRCH,  Esquire, 

Many  years  an  eminent  Surgeon  of  this  Metropolis  ; 
who  died  on  the  3rd  February,  1815, 

Aged  69  Years, 
and  whose  earthly  remains  lie  deposited  under  the  Pulpit  and  Desk. 

In  his  professional  Character, 
As  humane  as  he  was  skilful, 

He  permitted  not  the  daily  sight  of  wounds  and  sores, 

Afflictions  and  wretchedness  of  every  kind, 

To  blunt  the  edge  of  his  natural  feelings, 

For  the  sufferings  of  his  Fellow  creatures  : 

But,  contemning  a  too  hasty  reliance  on  vaunted  Theories, 

Sparing  of  the  Knife — abhorring  unnecessary  Torture — 

A  foe  to  wanton,  cruel,  or  dangerous  experiment, 
Averse  from  rash  operation,  and  the  destruction  of  parts, 

Redeemable  by  patient  and  judicious  care — 
He  erected  for  himself  a  high  and  distinguished  reputation, 

On  the  solid,  and  only  secure  Basis  of 

ENLIGHTENED   EXPERIENCE: 

Stimulated  throughout  Life  by  a  ivise  and  Christian-like 

Ambition,  to  cure,  not  maim — preserve,  and  not  destroy. 

Mankind  is  indebted  to  him 
For  a  more  intimate  acquaintance  ivith  the  powers 

Of  MEDICAL  ELECTRICITY; 

By  his  own  ingenious  and  improved  application  ofivhich 

He  performed  many  remarkable  and  almost  unhoped-for  cures. 

But  the  Practice  of  CO  W-POXING, 

Which  first  became  general  in  his  Day, 

Undaunted  by  the  overwhelming  influence  of 

Power  and  Prejudice,  and  the  voice  of  Nations, 

He  uniformly,  and  until  Death,  perseveringly  opposed ; 

Conscientiously  believing  it  to  be  a  Public  Infatuation, 

Fraught  with  peril  of  the  most  mischievous  consequences  to  Mankind. 

Whether  right  or  wrong,  Time  ivill  most  surely  determine: — 

MAN'S  MERE  OPINIONS  MUST  EVER  BE  LIABLE  TO  ERROR; 

BUT  BY  THE  MOTIVES  THAT  SWAY  HIS  HEART 

SHALL  HE  ALONE  B-E  JUDGED. 


To  perpetuate  the  remembrance  of  Qualities  so  excellent, 

PENELOPE  BIRCH, 
His  affectionate  and  only  surviving  Sister, 

Hath  raised  this  Monument : 
Not  out  of  a  worldly  and  vain-glorious 

Pride  of  Affinity  ; 

But  in  order  to  hand  down  an  Example  worthy  of  Imitation 
To  succeeding  Ages. 


GOLDSON  AND  BROWN. 

Jenner  recognised  Birch  as  a  dangerous  antagonist, 
and  behaved  toward  him  with  his  usual  meanness. 
Writing  from  Berkeley,  llth  October,  1812,  to  Moore 
in  London,  where  smallpox  was  prevalent,  he  observed — 

I  have  not  heard  lately  whether  the  fury  of  the  Smallpox  is 
abated  in  town.  I  trust  it  is.  Had  I  power  to  exercise  vaccination 
as  I  liked,  in  one  fortnight  this  dismal  work  of  death  should  entirely 
cease.  What  a  sad  wicked  fellow  is  that  Birch !  Moseley  I  hear 
nothing  of  now,  but  Birch  is  still  employing  his  agents  to  spread 
the  pestilence.* 

Birch  a  sad  wicked  fellow  employing  agents  to  spread 
pestilence  in  London,  whilst  the  good  Jenner,  capable  of 
arresting  the  dismal  work  of  death,  sat  impotent  at 
Berkeley  !  Comment  is  superfluous.  Quack,  malicious 
and  impudent,  is  written  at  large. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

GOLDSON  AND   BROWN. 

WILLIAM  GOLDSON,  member  of  the  London  College  of 
Surgeons,  practising  at  Portsea,  published  a  pamphlet  in 
1804  -f-  wherein  he  set  forth  a  number  of  instances  within 
his  own  experience  of  smallpox  following  vaccination 
by  infection  or  inoculation.  He  did  not  turn  against 
vaccination,  but  suggested  that  its  prophylaxy  might 
neither  be  so  certain  nor  so  enduring  as  at  first  asserted. 
Vaccination,  he  pointed  out,  had  been  carried  into  prac- 
tice on  a  wave  of  enthusiasm,  and  it  was  not  unreasonable 
to  expect  that  on  closer  acquaintance  some  of  the  claims 
made  for  it  should  be  subject  to  modification.  Indeed 
so  much  was  already  admitted ;  for  failures  had  led  to 
the  discrimination  of  spurious  from  genuine  cowpox, 

*  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  ii.,  p.  382. 

t  Gases  of  Smallpox  subsequent  to  Vaccination,  with  Facts  and  Observa- 
tions read  before  the  Medical  Society  at  Portsmouth,  29th  March,  1804  : 
addressed  to  the  Directors  of  the  Vaccine  Institution.  By  William  Goldson. 
Portsea,  1884. 


284  VACCINATION. 

and  to  the  issue  of  new  instructions  as  to  the  period  of 
taking  vaccine,  "  on  which  point,  it  was  now  said, 
depended  the  whole  success  of  the  operation."  Thus 
what  was  originally  set  forth  as  an  operation  for  which 
any  novice  was  competent,  had  developed  into  one  of 
considerable  delicacy  with  serious  liability  to  miscar- 
riage. Goldson,  therefore,  had  fair  reason  to  believe 
that  his  own  observations  and  suggestions  would  meet 
with  candid  consideration,  and,  if  verified,  serve  for 
general  guidance  in  the  practice  of  vaccination. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  recite  Goldson's  cases.  Interest- 
ing at  the  time,  they  are  now  commonplace.  He  found 
that  inoculation  with  smallpox  was  possible  at  an 
interval  after  vaccination,  and  that  infection  with 
smallpox  was  equally  possible  under  the  like  circum- 
stances. One  case  is  noteworthy  for  its  connection 
with  Jenner.  A  seaman,  named  Clarke,  was  successf  ully 
vaccinated  on  4th  November,  1800,  and,  returning  from 
a  voyage  to  the  West  Indies  was  put  to  the  variolous 
test  on  24th  March,  1802,  when  he  sickened  with  small- 
pox and  was  sent  to  Haslar.  To  prove  that  his  malady 
was  really  smallpox,  several  persons  were  variolated 
from  him.  The  Committee  of  the  House  of  Commons 
was  sitting  on  Jenner's  first  claim  for  public  money, 
and  Goldson  wrote  to  Jenner  to  come  to  Haslar  and  see 
Clarke  for  himself;  but  Jenner  was  too  astute  to  cumber 
himself  with  difficulties  at  a  time  when  so  much  cash 
was  in  question.  The  case  was  mentioned  to  the  Com- 
mittee, but  was  treated  as  of  no  moment  in  presence  of 
what  they  were  pleased  to  regard  as  overwhelming 
evidence  as  to  the  perpetual  virtue  of  vaccination. 

Goldson's  was  a  modest  pamphlet — conjectural  rather 
than  demonstrative.  He  ventured  to  think  it  was  pos- 
sible that  the  efficacy  of  vaccine  might  be  weakened  by 
transmission  from  arm  to  arm,  and  that  security  might 
be  restored  by  reversion  to  the  cow — 

The  casual  Cowpox  is  produced  by  virus  immediately  from  the 
animal ;  while  the  inoculated  disease  is  the  effect  of  new  matter 
generated  by  the  action  of  the  other  on  the  human  subject.  Whether 


GOLDSON  AND  BROWN.  285 

that  new  matter  be  possessed  of  the  power  to  produce  the  same 
permanent  properties  as  the  parent  virus,  time  alone  can  decide. 

He  likewise  suggested  that  horsegrease  might  be 
inoculated  on  the  nipple  of  the  milch  mare,  and  the 
virus  used  for  equination.  These  and  other  points  were 
advanced  with  a  philosophic  grace  that  ought  to  have 
commanded  respect ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  his  pamphlet 
was  received  with  a  howl  of  fury,  and  its  author 
denounced  as  an  ill-conditioned  fellow — ignorant,  preju- 
diced, pig-headed.  It  was  safer  to  be  pronounced  anti- 
vaccinist  than  a  vaccinator  and  harbour  doubt  as  to  any 
article  of  the  Jennerian  faith.  Ring  plied  his  bludgeon, 
over  the  heretic,  and  Jenner  wrote  of  him  with  malicious 
insolence — "  All  his  reasoning  is  erroneous ; "  "  his  arro- 
gance is  increased  by  attention ; "  "  he  obstinately  holds 
a  veil  before  his  eyes,  and  will  not  behold  the  vaccine 
light;"  "one  might  as  well  contend  with  a  blind  re  an 
on  the  nature  of  a  prism  ; "  and  so  on.  Goldson's  offence 
was  that  he  laid  his  finger  on  some  of  the  weaker  points 
of  vaccination;  that  his  sight  was  too  keen,  and  his 
reasoning  too  cogent.  At  this  day  the  questions  between 
him  and  Jenner  are  decided  by  vaccinators  themselves  in 
Goldson's  favour.* 

Perhaps  the  most  able  attack  on  the  practice  of 
vaccination  was  delivered  by  Thomas  Brown,  surgeon, 
Musselburgh ;  and  it  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  his 
book,  published  in  Edinburgh  in  1809,*f  is  so  little  known 
at  this  day.  Brown  had  accepted  vaccination,  carried 
away,  he  admitted,  by  the  common  enthusiasm,  and  the  un- 
qualified audacity  with  which  its  claims  were  asserted — 

The  practice  was  introduced  and  recommended  to  the  public  by 
its  Author  as  a  perfect  antidote  and  security  against  Smallpox 

*  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  ii.  pp.  338,  346,  348. 

f  An  Inquiry  into  the  Anti-Variolous  Power  of  Vaccination;  in  which 
from  the  state  of  the  Phenomena  and  the  Occurrence  of  a  great  variety  of 
Cases,  the  most  Serious  Doubts  are  suggested  of  the  Efficacy  of  the  Whole 
Practice,  and  its  Powers  at  best  proved  to  be  only  temporary.  From 
which  also  will  appear  the  Necessity  of  and  the  proper  period  for  again 
submitting  to  Inoculation  with  Variolous  Virus.  By  Thomas  Brown, 
Surgeon,  Musselburgh.  Edinburgh,  1809.  Pp.  307. 


286  VACCINATION. 


without  any  exception  or  reserve,  and  capable  of  banishing  Variola 
from  the  catalogue  of  human  misery.  I  have  no  hesitation  in  con- 
fessing that  I  became  an  early  convert  and  advocate  of  the  new 
practice ;  and  it  is  now  eight  years  and  a-half  since  I  have  uni- 
formly advised  and  practised  Vaccination,  in  which  period  I  may 
safely  say,  I  have  vaccinated  upwards  of  twelve  hundred  patients, 
and  have  only  inoculated  three  at  the  positive  request  of  parents. 
This  course  I  persevered  in  until  the  present  time,  notwithstanding 
I  met  with  several  instances  where  it  appeared  to  fail  in  giving 
security;  some  about  three  years  after  the  introduction  of  the 
practice ;  a  few  more  about  two  years  ago ;  and  those  which  make 
part  of  the  present  volume  within  the  last  six  months. 

An  epidemic,  in  which  his  own  perfectly  vaccinated 
patients  fell  victims  to  smallpox,  at  last  opened  his  eyes 
to  the  delusion  in  which  he  was  walking,  and  to  the 
perversity  with  which  he  and  others  had  resisted  the 
light  of  truth — 

I  am  convinced  from  what  has  passed  under  my  own  observation 
for  the  last  three  or  four  years,  that  we  have  been  all  guilty  of 
rejecting  evidence  that  deserved  more  attention,  in  consequence  of 
the  strong  prepossessions  which  existed,  from  the  very  persuasive 
proof  of  Vaccination  resisting  inoculation  and  exposure  to  infec- 
tion, and  from  our  judgments  being  goaded  and  overpowered  with 
the  positive  and  arbitrary  opinions  of  its  abettors.  I  am  now 
perfectly  satisfied,  from  my  mind  being  under  the  influence  of 
prejudice  and  blind  to  the  impression  of  the  fairest  evidence,  that 
the  last  time  Smallpox  was  prevalent,  I  rejected  and  explained 
away  many  cases  which  were  entitled  to  the  most  serious  attention, 
and  showed  myself  as  violent  and  unreasonable  a  partisan  as  any 
of  my  brethren  in  propagating  a  practice,  which  I  have  now  little 
doubt  we  must  ere  long  surrender  at  discretion. 

When  Brown  first  saw  the  vaccinated  prostrate  with 
smallpox,  he  concluded  that  there  must  have  been  some 
mistake  about  their  vaccination ;  "  for  after  Vaccination 
it  was  impossible  to  contract  Smallpox ; "  but  the  evi- 
dence of  his  senses  gradually  overcame  the  phantasy 
imposed  upon  him,  and  like  an  honest  man  he  proclaimed 
his  error,  and  verified  the  experiences  whereby  he 
had  been  reluctantly  corrected.  He  set  forth  with  all 
particulars  forty-eight  cases  of  smallpox  following  vac- 
cination within  his  own  immediate  cognizance,  and 
though  aware  of  many  cases  outside  that  cognizance, 
he  limited  himself  to  what  he  could  attest  with  personal 


GOLDSON  AND  BROWN.  287 

assurance.  He  knew  he  would  be  told  that  the  vaccina- 
tions had  been  imperfect,  or  that  what  he  took  for 
smallpox  was  some  other  eruption — 

It  is  strenuously  contended  [said  Brown]  by  nearly  every  author, 
and  by  almost  every  practitioner,  that  Vaccination  is  a  perfect 
antidote  against  Smallpox,  if  the  disease  be  properly  communicated ; 
and  Dr.  Jenner  and  his  relative,  Mr.  Gr.  Jenner,  positively  assert, 
that  they  have  had  not  one  instance  of  failure  in  their  own  practice. 
They  all  therefore,  and  without  hesitation,  refer  the  whole  series 
of  failures  that  have  been  brought  forward  to  the  sweeping  power 
of  imperfect  Vaccination,  or  to  the  blindness  and  stupidity  of  the 
medical  practitioner  who  cannot  distinguish  between  Smallpox  and 
Chickenpox,  a  rash,  or  bug-bites. 

Nor  did  Brown  rest  satisfied  with  proving  that  vac- 
cination did  not  prevent  smallpox.  He  also  showed  the 
fallacy  of  the  variolous  test.  He  adduced  twelve  cases 
in  which  vaccinated  persons  had  been  variolated  as  if 
they  had  never  been  vaccinated.  Also  four  cases  in 
which  vaccination  and  variolation  were  effected  simul- 
taneously, the  diseases  running  their  courses  concurrently, 
proving  there  was  no  antagonism  between  them;  and 
since  they  could  occur  together,  what  reason  was  left  for 
supposing  that  one  might  not  succeed  the  other  ? 

Having  found  liberty  in  the  truth,  he  reverted  to 
Jenner's  writings,  and  reading  them  with  opened  eyes, 
he  was  not  slow  to  detect  and  to  demonstrate  the  laxity 
of  statement,  the  contradictions,  and  absurdities  with 
which  they  were  pervaded.  No  reply  was  attempted : 
no  reply,  indeed,  was  possible.  The  surgeons  of  the 
Edinburgh  Vaccine  Institution  issued  An  Examination 
of  Mr.  Brown's  Opinions  and  Statements*  but  they 
merely  carped  over  non-essential  details,  and  left  the 
main  issues  wholly  unaffected.  What  they  had  to  show 
was  that  Brown's  patients  were  either  unvaccinated,  or 
had  not  had  smallpox ;  and  unable  to  do  this,  they  were 
unable  to  do  anything. 

Brown    remained    victor.      He    did    not    overthrow 

*  Report  of  the  Surgeons  of  the  Edinburgh  Vaccine  Institution,  contain- 
ing an  Examination  of  the  Opinions  and  Statements  of  Mr.  Brown  of 
Musselburgh  on  Vaccination.  Edinburgh,  1809. 


288  VACCINATION. 


vaccination,  nor  restore  variolation,  but  he  did  make  an 
end  in  Scotland  of  confidence  in  vaccination  as  an  omni- 
potent safeguard  against  smallpox.  The  rite  continued  to 
be  practised  on  humbler  terms:  "it  did  no  harm":  even 
Mr.  Brown  allowed  that  it  might  keep  off  smallpox  for  a 
time :  and  "  there  was  reason  to  believe  that  it  tended  to 
make  the  disease  milder  when  it  did  occur."  Thirty 
years  after  his  first  publication,  in  1842,  Brown  reaffirmed 
his  position  in  a  series  of  letters*  to  Dr.  George  Gregory, 
a  sympathetic  friend,  and  advised  a  return  to  variolation 
in  view  of  "  the  acknowledged  defects  of  the  Jennerian 
practice" — a  dismal  alternative.  But  it  is  in  vain  to 
expect  any  man  to  be  much  in  advance  of  his  time  :  it 
suffices  for  honourable  distinction  that  he  be  in  advance. 
When  Brown  commenced  practice,  smallpox  and  other 
fevers  were  regarded  as  inevitable  as  storms  and  earth- 
quakes, and  the  knowledge  with  which  we  are  now  so 
familiar,  that  they  are  engendered  in  foul  habits  and 
habitations,  was  for  practical  purposes  unknown.  Our 
reproach  is,  that  knowing  so  much  better,  we  surrender 
ourselves  to  a  superstitious  observance  conceived  in  days 
of  darkness. 

*An  Investigation  of  the  Present  Unsatisfactory  and  Defective  State  of 
Vaccination,  and  the  Several  Expedients  proposed  for  removing  the  now 
Acknowledged  Defects  of  the  Jennerian  practice.  In  a  Series  of  Letters 
addressed  to  Dr.  George  Gregory,  Physician  to  the  Smallpox  and  Vac- 
cination Hospital,  London ;  ivhich  also  are  intended  as  an  Answer  to 
the  Queries  of  the  Academy  of  Science  in  Paris,  proposed  as  the  subject 
of  a  Prize  Essay.  By  Thomas  Brown,  formerly  Medical  Practitioner 
in  Musselburgh.  Edinburgh,  1842,  pp.  139. 


MOSELEY,  ROWLEY  AND  SQUIRREL.  289 

CHAPTER     XXT. 

MOSELEY,   ROWLEY    AND    SQUIRREL. 

IT  may  be  well  to  devote  a  chapter  to  those  antagonists 
of  Vaccination  who,  though  right  in  their  contention 
against  cowpox,  did  more  or  less  to  discredit  their  cause 
by  scurrility  and  extravagance.  The  faults  of  these  men 
are  frequently  adduced  as  evidence  of  the  absurd  and 
brutal  resistance  with  which  Vaccination  was  encountered, 
but  it  is  forgotten  how  intense  was  their  provocation, 
and  how  the  bad  on  one  side  was  matched  by  the  bad  on 
the  other.  It  was  a  contest  between  Smallpoxers  and 
Cowpoxers,  alike  ignorant  of  the  conditions  of  physical 
well-being.  It  is  plain,  however,  in  the  light  of  our  later 
experience,  that  much  that  was  asserted  by  the  Small- 
poxers of  the  uselessness  and  harmfulness  of  cowpox 
must  have  been  exactly  and  painfully  true,  though  per- 
sistently and  ferociously  denied. 

In  the  Edinburgh  Review  for  October,  1 806,  appeared 
an  article  entitled  "  Pamphlets  on  Vaccine  Inoculation," 
which  may  be  taken  as  a  reflection  of  the  state  of  the 
controversy  at  that  date,  and  as  an  index  to  the  chief 
offenders  against  propriety.  The  article  was  written  by 
the  editor,  Francis  Jeffrey,  and  was  a  product  of  that  per- 
spicuous intelligence,  which  reduced  to  order  whatever 
was  subjected  to  its  action,  in  much  the  same  way  that  a 
housemaid  "  sets  to  rights "  a  library  by  ranging  the 
books  according  to  their  sizes  and  bindings,  and  assorting 
the  papers  so  that  they  lie  neatly  disposed.  As  is  the 
habit  of  able  editors,  a  view  of  the  variolous  controversy 
was  evolved  that  might  be  comfortably  accepted  and  con- 
fidently repeated  by  his  readers — the  evolution  of  such 
rational  mirage  being  regarded  for  the  time  as  veracious 
matter-of-fact. 

First  we  may  take  the  reviewer's  evidence  as  to  the 
extent  and  fury  of  the  controversy — 
19 


290  VACCINATION. 


The  ample  and  public  testimony  offered  in  favour  of  Vaccination 
seemed  for  a  while  to  set  the  question  at  rest ;  and,  except  in  a  few 
obscure  pamphlets  and  communications  to  the  medical  journals, 
little  was  heard  in  opposition  to  it,  till  1804,  when  Mr.  Goldson  of 
Portsmouth  published  six  cases  of  Smallpox  occurring  after  Vac- 
cination, accompanied  with  observations,  calculated  to  shake  the 
confidence  which  was  now  very  generally  placed  in  the  security  of 
the  Jennerian  inoculation.  These  were  answered  by  Mr.  Ring  and 
others,  who  endeavoured  to  show  that,  in  some  of  his  cases,  Mr. 
Goldson's  patients  had  not  had  the  genuine  Cowpox  in  the  first 
instance,  and  that  in  others,  they  had  not  had  the  genuine  Small- 
pox thereafter.  This  part  of  the  controversy  was  conducted  with 
temper,  and  with  a  reasonable  degree  of  candour.  In  the  end  of 
the  same  year  however,  Dr.  Moseley  published  his  treatise  on  the 
Cowpox,  in  which  the  ravings  of  Bedlam  seemed  to  be  blended 
with  the  tropes  of  Billingsgate.  Dr.  Eowley  followed  on  the  same 
side,  and  in  the  same  temper,  with  500  cases  of  "  the  beastly  new 
diseases  produced  from  Cowpox,"  and  attracted  customers  by  two 
coloured  engravings  at  the  head  of  his  work  of  "the  Cowpoxed,  ox- 
faced  boy,"  and  the  "  Cowpoxed,  mangey  girl."  The  battle  now  be- 
came general.  The  Eeverend  Eowland  Hill  thundered  in  defence  of 
vaccination — Dr.  Squirrel  leaped  from  his  cage  upon  the  whole 
herd  of  vaccinators — Mr.  Birch  insisted  upon  stating  his  serious 
reasons  for  objecting  to  Cowpox — Drs.  Thornton  and  Lettsom 
chanted  pasans  in  its  praise — Mr.  Lipscomb  strutted  forward  with 
a  ponderous,  wordy  dissertation  on  its  failures  and  mischiefs ;  and 
Messrs.  Ring,  Merriman,  and  Blair  answered  everybody ;  and  ex- 
asperated all  their  opponents  by  their  intemperance  and  personality. 
Charges  of  murder  and  falsehood  were  interchanged  among  the 
disputants  without  the  smallest  ceremony ;  the  medical  journals 
foamed  with  the  violence  of  their  contention  ;  it  raged  in  hospitals 
and  sick-chambers  ;  and  polluted  with  its  malignity  the  sanctity  of 
the  pulpit  and  the  harmony  of  convivial  philanthropy. 

In  the  whole  course  of  our  censorial  labours,  we  have  never  had 
occasion  to  contemplate  a  scene  so  disgusting  and  humiliating  as  is 
presented  by  the  greater  part  of  this  controversy ;  nor  do  we  be- 
lieve that  the  virulence  of  political  animosity  or  personal  rivalry  or 
revenge  ever  gave  rise,  among  the  lowest  and  most  prostituted 
scribblers,  to  so  much  coarseness,  illiberality,  violence  and  absurdity 
as  is  here  exhibited  by  gentlemen  of  sense  and  education  discussing 
a  point  of  professional  science  with  a  view  to  the  good  of  mankind. 
At  one  time,  indeed,  we  were  so  overpowered  and  confounded  by 
the  clamour  and  vehement  contradictions  of  the  combatants,  that 
we  were  tempted  to  abandon  the  task  we  had  undertaken,  and 
leave  it  to  some  more  athletic  critic  to  collect  the  few  facts  and  the 
little  reasoning  which  could  be  discerned  in  this  tempest  of  the 
medical  world. 


MOSELEY,  ROWLEY  AND  SQUIRREL.  291 


Furious  was  the  controversy,  but  why  wras  it  furious  ? 
There  are  often  great  fights  over  little  matters,  but  the 
reason  is  that  the  little  matters  are  vitally  related  to  the 
self-love  of  the  combatants  ;  and  thus  it  was  with  the 
Cowpoxers  and  the  Smallpoxers.  The  Cowpoxers  set 
out  with  the  absolute  assertion  that  whoever  submitted 
to  their  prescription  would  be  secure  from  smallpox  for 
life.  Without  proof,  or  with  powerful  sham  proof,  the 
assertion  was  endorsed  by  the  mass  of  the  medical  pro- 
fession, and  there  followed  the  conversion  of  the  com- 
munity in  that  sort  of  faith-panic  which  is  described  by 
Carlyle  as  Swarmery — 

All  the  world  assenting,  and  continually  repeating  and  rever- 
berating, there  soon  conies  that  singular  phenomenon  called 
Swarmery,  or  the  gathering  of  men  in  swarms ;  and  what  prodigies 
they  are  in  the  habit  of  doing  and  believing  when  thrown  into  that 
miraculous  condition !  Singular,  in  the  case  of  human  swarms, 
with  what  perfection  of  unanimity  and  quasi-religious  conviction 
the  stupidest  absurdities  can  be  received  as  axioms  of  Euclid,  nay, 
as  articles  of  faith,  which  you  are  not  only  to  believe,  unless 
malignantly  insane,  but  are  (if  you  have  any  honour  or  morality) 
to  push  into  practice,  and,  without  delay  see  done,  if  your  soul 
would  live.* 

People  thus  enchanted  do  not  like  to  be  brought  to 
their  senses ;  and  medical  men,  who  in  1800  attested  the 
perpetual  prophylaxy  of  cowpox,  were  naturally  very 
unwilling  to  be  proved  deceivers  and  deceived.  When 
cases  of  smallpox  were  reported  as  following  vaccination, 
they  at  first  denied  the  possibility,  saying  that  either 
there  had  been  no  vaccination,  or  that  the  smallpox  was 
not  smallpox.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Smallpoxers  who 
had  been  snuffed  out  by  the  Cowpoxers,  revived  in 
presence  of  the  discovered  impotence  of  the  new  practice, 
and  stoutly  maintained,  and  cruelly  demonstrated  that 
unquestionable  vaccinations  were  followed  by  unques- 
tionable smallpox.  It  needs  little  acquaintance  with 
human  nature  to  see  unlimited  elements  of  bitterness  in 
these  conditions.  To  be  convicted  of  imposture  does  not 

*  Shooting  Niagara. 


292  VACCINATION. 


beget  equanimity,  nor  contradiction  as  to  plain  matter- 
of-fact;  and  thus  convicted  were  the  Cowpoxers  and 
thus  contradicted  were  the  Smallpoxers. 

The  Edinburgh  reviewer  described  Dr.  Moseley's treatise 
on  cowpox  as  blending  "  the  ravings  of  Bedlam  with  the 
tropes  of  Billingsgate."  Some  Billingsgate  I  concede,  but 
not  Bedlam  at  all.  Much  however  depends  on  the  point 
of  view.  Vaccination  if  regarded  as  a  blessing  in  which 
the  inspiration  of  heaven  was  consummated  in  the  salva- 
tion of  the  human  race  from  smallpox,*  resistance  thereto 
might  appear,  as  Carlyle  observes  of  creatures  under 
enchantment,  as  "  malignantly  insane." 

Dr.  Moseley's  book,^  it  is  to  be  allowed,  was  singularly 
exasperating.  He  had  spoken  against  cowpox  from  the 
outset,  and  was  charged  with  condemning  that  of  which 
he  knew  nothing ;  to  which  he  cogently  replied  that  he 
could  scarcely  know  less  than  the  gang  of  medical  men  who 
attested  its  perpetual  efficacy  in  the  newspapers  in  1800 
before  they  had  any  proper  experience  of  it  whatever.  If 
his  scepticism  was  premature,  what  was  their  credulity  ? 
Moseley  had  patience :  no  argument  could  be  heard  in 
the  rage  that  set  in  for  the  new  salvation.  "  Cowpox,  I 
admit,  is  not  contagious,"  he  said,  "  but  cow-mania  is." 
When,  however,  in  process  of  time  it  was  seen  in  hundreds 
of  cases  that  cowpox  conferred  no  immunity  from  small- 
pox, he  published  in  1804  Lues  Bovilla — a  somewhat 
pompous  treatise,  with  frequent  touches  of  superfluous 
learning,  and  permeated  with  the  irritating  superiority 
of  the  true  prophet — "  You  see  it  has  turned  out  j  ust  as 
I  predicted."  Nor  was  he  content  to  make  general  asser- 
tions :  he  specified  the  names  and  addresses  of  those  who 

*  ' '  Neglect  not,  I  exhort  you,  such  proffered  blessing.  Secure  your- 
selves from  danger  ;  preserve  your  children  ;  and  render  most  grateful 
thanks  to  Almighty  God  who  has  so  providentially  permitted  to  man 
this  means  of  defence  against  the  pestilence  that  walked  in  darkness, 
and  the  sickness  that  destroyed  in  the  noon-day." — Address  of  the  Rev. 
T.  A.  Warren  to  his  Parishioners,  reprinted  by  the  Royal  Jennerian 
Society,  1803. 

t  A  Treatise  on  the  Lues  Bovilla  or  Cowpox.  By  Benjamin  Moseley, 
M.D.  Second  Edition.  London,  1805.  Pp.  142. 


MOSELEY,  ROWLEY  AND  SQUIRREL.  293 


had  been  correctly  vaccinated,  or  had  taken  cowpox  from 
the  cow,  and  had  subsequently  suffered  from  smallpox 
with  their  neighbours;  also  of  cases  of  severe  illness, 
injury,  and  death  resulting  from  vaccination.  Bluster 
was  idle  in  presence  of  such  facts.  Even  the  Royal 
Jeiinerians  had  to  eat  humble  pie,  for  in  their  Report, 
dated  2nd  January,  1806,  we  read — 

It  is  admitted  by  the  Committee  that  a  few  cases  have  been 
brought  before  them  of  persons  having  the  Smallpox  who  had 
apparently  passed  through  the  Cowpox  in  a  regular  way. 

With  so  much  admitted  by  such  furious  fanatics,  what 
might  not  be  inferred  ! 

Moseley  was  held  in  high  esteem  alike  by  the  profession 
and  the  public,  and  his  judgment  enforced  by  so  much 
serious  evidence  contributed  heavily  to  the  discredit  of 
vaccination,  and  unfortunately  to  the  resumption  of 
variolous  inoculation.  That  the  reaction  was  extensive, 
especially  in  London,  appears  from  numerous  contem- 
porary testimonies,  which  Moseley  confirms  in  saying — 

The  people  at  large  are  not  to  be  reproached  for  putting  their 
faith  in  this  splendid  imposition  on  humanity ;  and  to  the  credit 
of  their  discernment  and  parental  feelings,  the  middle  and  inferior 
classes  have  taken  precedence  in  renouncing  the  delusion.  At 
this  moment,  unless  attacked  by  surprise,  or  with  threats,  or 
cajoled  by  artifice  (all  of  which  have  been  practised  on  them)  there 
are  now  none  among  them  in  London  and  the  adjacent  villages 
who  will  expose  their  children  to  Cowpox  Inoculation. 

Rowland  Hill  was  a  religious  and  philanthropic  nota- 
ble in  those  days,  and  in  common  with  many  of  his  kind, 
was  an  enthusiastic  vaccinator.  A  leading  spirit  in  the 
Royal  Jennerian  Society,  he  had  the  school-room  of 
Surrey  Chapel  constituted  a  vaccination  station  whereat 
Dr.  Walker  officiated.  Nor  was  he  content  to  patronise 
the  practice,  but  was  himself  an  energetic  operator. 
Speaking  at  the  annual  meeting  of  the  Jennerian  Society, 
17th  May,  1806,  he  said— 

"  "With  my  own  hands  I  have  vaccinated  upwards  of  5000 
persons,"  and,  lifting  up  his  eyes  to  heaven,  exclaimed,  "  I 
solemnly  declare  before  God,  I  have  not  had  a  failure  in  a  single 


294  VACCINATION. 


instaDce.  What  then  shall  we  say  of  the  false  and  daring  publi- 
cations of  those  who  denounce  the  benign  practice,  and  how  shall 
they  answer  for  their  conduct  to  their  King,  their  Country,  and 
their  God ! " 

Hill  and  Jenner  were  great  friends.  Hill  visited 
Jenner  at  Berkeley,  and  Jenner  heard  Hill  when  he 
preached  at  Cheltenham.  Introducing  Jenner  to  a  noble- 
man, Hill  remarked — 

"  Allow  me  to  present  to  your  Lordship  my  friend  Dr. 
Jenner,  who  has  been  the  means  of  saving  more  lives 
than  any  other  man." 

To  which  Jenner,  being  of  a  pious  turn,  sighed  with 
meek  effusion — 

"  Ah  !  would  I,  like  you,  could  say  souls."* 

So  committed  and  so  possessed,  Hill  naturally  resented 
the  growing  distrust  of  vaccination.  It  cut  him  deeply  to 
be  supposed  a  quack ;  and  in  1806  he  issued  a  pamphlet^ 
relating  his  experiences  as  a  Jennerite,  defending  his 
practice,  and  denouncing  those  who  treated  it  despite- 
fully.  Moseley  especially  was  subjected  to  severe  and 
contemptuous  condemnation.  Hill's  sanctimony  and 
virulence,  his  vigour  and  venom  compose  a  piquant 
mixture,  and  if  we  could  tarry  for  amusement  we  might 
produce  it  abundantly  from  a  variety  of  elegant  extracts. 
Consider,  for  instance,  this  his  adjuration,  and  its  pitiful 
object — 

Oh,  the  blessing  of  the  Jennerian  inoculation !  Did  ever  man 
stand  as  Jenner  so  much  like  an  Angel  of  God,  an  instrument  in 
the  hands  of  Divine  Providence  between  the  living  and  the  dead 
till  the  plague  was  stayed ! 

Hill's  latent  assumption  throughout  his  discourse  was — 

First,  that  all  must  have  smallpox  ;  and 

Second,  that  all  the  vaccinated  who  escaped  smallpox, 
owed  their  salvation  to  their  Jennerisation. 

It  never  apparently  occurred  to  him  that  before  Jenner 
was  heard  of,  many  passed  through  life  exempt  from 

*  Sidney's  Life  of  Hill,  p.  225. 

t  Coivpox  Inoculation  Vindicated  and  Recommended  from  Matters  of 
Fact.  By  Rowland  Hill,  A.M.  London,  1806.  Pp.  72. 


MOSELEY,  ROWLEY  AND  SQUIRREL.  295 

smallpox;  nor,  consequently,  did  he  inquire  how  they 
escaped ;  nor  why,  when  vaccination  was  introduced, 
escape  should  be  placed  to  its  credit. 

The  belief  in  the  vicarious  influence  of  vaccination 
comes  out  strongly,  too,  in  Hill's  pamphlet.  Of  Lon- 
doners there  were  then  over  1,000,000,  and  of  these,  he 
says,  at  least,  100,000  had  been  vaccinated,  and  with  this 
effect — 

Vaccination  reduced  the  deaths  from  Smallpox  in  London  to  10 
per  week ;  but  after  the  Inoculators  had  been  making  their 
clamours,  the  applicants  for  Vaccination  diminished,  and  the 
deaths  soon  rose  to  100  per  week. 

Now  can  effrontery  itself  deny  that  the  introduction  of  Vaccina- 
tion was  the  sole  cause  of  reducing  the  fatality  on  the  Smallpox  list  ? 

Thus  one  in  ten  being  vaccinated,  smallpox  was  re- 
duced throughout  the  unvaccinated  9-10ths  ;  and  as  soon 
as  the  vicarious  operations  dropped,  up  went  the  rate  of 
mortality !  Nor  was  Hill  singular  in  this  persuasion. 
He  cited  his  friend  Dr.  Lettsom  as  writing  to  him,  25th 
March,  1806— 

Vaccination  was  gradually  lessening  the  mortality  in  1804,  when 
about  the  middle  of  1805  false  reports  against  Vaccination  gained 
very  general  credit,  and  Vaccination  was  nearly  suspended;  the 
consequence  was  the  death  of  1286  children  in  four  months 
(September  to  December)  or  ten  every  day,  each  of  whom  might 
now  have  been  alive  had  the  blessing  of  Vaccination  been  accepted. 

And  again  I  find  Lettsom  wrote  to  Moseley,  November, 

1808— 


The  increase  of  births  and  decrease  of  deaths  has  added  3000 
lives  annually  to  the  population  of  London  during  the  period  that 
Vaccination  has  been  practised. 

Talk  evidently  sincere,  and  widely  repeated,  but  with 
how  little  consideration  for  truth  ! 

To  return  to  Moseley.  He  was  not  the  man  to  endure 
Hill's  aggression  submissively,  and  in  a  pamphlet  entitled 
A n  Oliver  for  a  Rowland*  he  made  a  terrific  reprisal. 

*  An  Oliver  for  a  Rowland;  or,  a  Cowpox  Epistle  to  the  Rev.  Rowland 
Hill  under  the  wing  of  Surrey  Chapel.  By  Benjamin  Moseley,  M.D. 
Tenth  Edition.  London,  1807.  Pp.  102. 


296  VACCINATION. 


The  public  were  delighted  with  it,  and  in  the  course  of 
a  few  months  it  ran  through  ten  editions.  Hill  was 
generally  regarded  as  a  clerical  mountebank,  with  more 
impudence  than  piety,  and  to  see  him  knocked  over, 
kicked,  and  rolled  in  the  mire,  was  sport  that  carried 
many  sympathisers.  Moseley's  opening  address  gives 
the  key  to  the  whole  performance  — 

ROWLAND, — I  bought  your  pamphlet,  entitled  Cowpox  Inocula- 
tion Vindicated,  dated  the  25th  of  March,  1806. 

I  paid  a  shilling  for  it.  Eowland, — it  is  not  dear.  The  same 
quantity  of  folly,  falsehood,  and  impudence,  could  not  have  been 
bought  for  twice  the  money  of  any  other  Cowpoxer  from  the  Ganges 
to  the  Mississippi. 

But  let  me  ask  you,  Rowland,  what  could  induce  you  to  take  up 
your  pen  to  attack  me  on  the  subject  of  Physic,  who  never  attacked 
you  on  the  subject  of  Religion?  Would  it  not  have  been  more 
prudent  in  you  to  have  continued  to  expose  yourself  in  your  own 
trade  in  your  own  shop  ? 

As  to  my  learned  friend  Dr.  Lettsom  (who  is  never  out  of  the  way 
when  there  is  good  to  be  done)  being  moved  to  instigate  you,  a 
Methodist  parson,  to  enter  into  a  medical  controversy — that  can 
only  be  accounted  for  by  supposing  he  owes  you  a  grudge,  and  put 
you  into  my  hands  for  payment. 

Paid  he  was  with  interest — gross  and  Rabelaisian ;  and 
Hill,  when  he  had  picked  himself  up  and  recovered  his 
senses,  discreetly  retired  from  the  combat. 

Spite  of  his  pomposity  and  buffoonery,  there  was  good 
sense  and  humour  in  Moseley,  and  his  resistance  to  the 
Jennerian  mania  was  not  ineffective.  As  he  wrote  in 
1808— 

It  is  ten  years  since  I  began  this  Trojan  war  against  Vaccinia ; 
and  if  it  be  not  yet  ended,  I  have  at  least  the  satisfaction  to  see  that 
her  original  troops  are  no  longer  able  to  defend  her  throne ;  and 
that  the  mobled  Queen  with  "a  clout  upon  her  head  where  late 
diadem  stood,"  has  fallen  to  a  new  dynasty  of  mercenaries.* 

In  Dr.  Munk's  Roll  of  the  Royal  College  of  Physicians 
we  read,  that  Dr.  Moseley  was  appointed  physician  to 
Chelsea  Hospital  in  1788,  "an  office  which  he  tilled  with 

*  A  Review  of  the  Report  of  the  Royal  College  of  Physicians  of  London 
on  Vaccination.  By  Benjamin  Moseley,  M.I).  London,  1808.  Pp.  86. 


MOSELEY,  ROWLEY  AND  SQUIRREL.  297 

the  highest  eclat  for  more  than  thirty  years  " — until  his 
death  in  1819— 

Though  a  shrewd  practitioner,  and  undeniably  a  man  of  exten- 
sive mental  capacity  and  very  considerable  attainments,  Dr. 
Moseley  was  a  violent  opponent  of  Vaccination,  on  which  his  com- 
munications to  the  press  were  incessant.  They  did  little  credit  to 
his  medical  penetration,  or  his  qualifications  as  a  dispassionate 
searcher  after  truth,  and,  happily  for  his  reputation,  are  now  well 
nigh  forgotten.* 

Are  they  ?  For  what  else  is  Dr.  Moseley  remembered  ? 
So  that  a  man  does  his  duty  in  the  world,  whether  he 
be  forgotten  or  remembered  is  not  worth  a  thought ;  but 
Moseley's  early  and  steadfast  resistance  to  the  Cowpox 
Imposture  will  long  constitute  his  title  to  grateful  recol- 
lection. 

Dr.  William  Rowley,  Physician  to  the  Marylebone 
Infirmary,  also  left  his  mark  in  medical  history  as  a 
determined  opponent  of  vaccination.  He  had  seen  the 
profession  and  the  public  go  mad  about  so  many  absurd 
novelties,  that  it  did  not  surprise  him  that  they  should 
go  mad  about  cowpox :  and  after  due  experience  and 
investigation  he  delivered  judgment  on  the  craze  and  its 
pernicious  effects  in  a  pamphlet  entitled  Cowpox  Inocula- 
tion no  Security  against  Smallpox,^  containing  two 
coloured  engravings  representing  the  Cowpoxed  Ox- 
Faced  Boy,  and  the  Cowpoxed  Mangey  Girl.  Much 
ridicule  was  expended  on  these  pictures,  and  to  this  day 
whoever  wishes  to  be  funny  and  create  giggle  over  the 


*  The  Roll  of  the  Royal  College  of  Physicians  comprising  Biographical 
Sketches.     By  William  Munk,  M.D.     London,  1878. 

t  Cowpox  Inoculation  no  Security  against  Smallpox  Infection.      To 
which  are  added  the  Modes  of  treating  the  Beastly  New  Diseases  produced 
from  Cowpox,  explained  by  two  coloured  copper-plate  engravings,  as — 
Cowpox  Mange  Cowpox  Evil  or  Abscess 

Cowpox  Ulcers  Cowpox  Mortification. 

With  the  Author's  certain,  experienced  and  successful  mode  of  Inoculating 
for  the  Smallpox  which  now  becomes  necessary  from  Cowpox  failure,  etc. 
By  William  Rowley,  M.D.,  Member  of  the  University  of  Oxford,  the 
Royal  College  of  Physicians,  London,  and  Physician  to  the  St.  Maryle- 
bone Infirmary.  London,  1805.  Pp.  82.  The  first  edition  appeared 
4th  October,  1805,  and  a  third  27th  January,  1806. 


298  VACCINATION. 


early  resistance  to  vaccination  tells  how  one  Dr.  Rowley 
maintained  that  Jenner's  benign  virus  induced  the  face 
of  an  ox  on  a  boy ;  but  like  the  majority  of  comic 
anecdotes,  it  is  untrue.  The  engraving  represents  a 
comely  lad  with  a  swelling  on  the  upper  part  of  his  left 
cheek,  which  was  thought  to  give  that  side  of  his  face 
an  ox-like  expression.  Many  a  medical  practitioner 
among  the  poor  would  at  this  day  have  little  difficulty 
in  presenting  living  examples  of  affliction  answering  to 
Rowley's  pictures — and  worse.  It  was,  moreover,  the 
fear  or  fancy  of  many  at  the  time  that  inoculation  with 
cowpox  might  beget  bovine  characteristics  in  the  human 
species,  and  the  fear  or  fancy  was  turned  to  inevitable 
account  in  jest  and  earnest.  The  jest  is  visible  in  some 
of  Rowlandson's  caricatures,  and  stories  like  this  got  into 
circulation — 

A  child  at  Peckham,  after  being  inoculated  with  Cowpox,  had  its 
former  natural  disposition  absolutely  changed  to  the  brutal,  so  that 
it  ran  upon  all  fours  like  a  beast,  bellowing  like  a  coiv,  and  butting 
like  a  butt. 

In  order  to  discredit  Rowley,  it  is  thought  fair  policy 
to  connect  him  with  such  nonsense,  and  to  have  it  sup- 
posed that  he  rested  his  case  upon  "  the  cowpoxed  ox- 
faced  boy:"  it  was  far  otherwise.  He  diligently  tracked 
the  vaccinators,  and  accumulated  504  cases  of  smallpox 
and  injury  after  vaccination  with  75  deaths,  particulars 
being  accurately  specified.  Nor  was  he  content  merely 
to  report  what  he  had  ascertained.  "  Come  and  see,"  was 
his  forcible  argument.  "  I  have  lately  had  under  my 
care,"  he  wrote,  "  some  of  the  worst  species  of  malignant 
smallpox  in  the  Marylebone  Infirmary,  which  many  of 
the  faculty  have  examined  and  know  to  have  been  vac- 
cinated." His  trust  in  "  Come  and  see,"  he  still  more 
powerfully  exemplified  in  an  exhibition  of  the  injuries 
inflicted  by  vaccination  in  his  Lecture  Room  in  Savile 
Row  in  October,  1805.  "  Knowing,"  he  said,  "  the  cavil- 
ling character  of  the  Cowpoxers,  I  determined  to  leave 
them  no  hole  for  retreat";  and  therefore  he  brought 
together  Joules,  "  the  ox-faced  boy,  who  also  had  a 


MOSELEY,  ROWLEY  AND  SQUIRREL.  299 

terribly  diseased  elbow-joint";  Marianne  Lewis,  the 
mangey  girl,  "who  was  covered  with  blotches  like  a 
leopard";  "a  load  of  children  in  a  cart  from  the  south 
of  London,"  and  others  accompanied  by  their  parents, 
and  displaying  their  various  maladies,  said,  "  Behold  the 
effects  of  the  new  disease  that  has  been  taken  from  the 
cow -and  implanted  in  humanity  !"  This  painful  exposi- 
tion was  continued  over  two  days,  and  as  he  records, 
"  the  scene  was  truly  affecting  and  distressing  to  all  wrho 
witnessed  it."  An  antagonist  like  Rowley  is  a  serious 
factor  in  any  controversy,  and  we  may  estimate  the  havoc 
he  wrought  by  the  extreme  anxiety  of  the  Jennerites  to 
have  him  estimated  by  the  supposed  absurdity  of  the 
ox-faced  boy. 

To  a  man  of  practical  temper  like  Rowley,  the  enthus- 
iasm with  which  vaccination  was  at  first  advocated 
appeared  akin  to  delirium — 

I  have  been  in  some  vaccination  storms,  and  have  had  the  buttons 
torn  off  my  coat,  cloth  and  all,  to  convince  me  of  the  great  and 
infallible  excellence  of  Cowpox.  I  have  seen  some  of  the  vehement 
vaccinators  redden  like  a  flame  with  fury,  their  lips  quivering,  their 
eyes  starting  out  of  their  heads,  their  mouths  foaming,  their  tongues 
dropping  hard  words,  and  their  fists  clenched  like  pugilists,  reatiy 
to  accompany  their  violent  wrath  with  other  knock-down  argu- 
ments. In  such  circumstances,  mild,  investigating  Philosophy 
quits  the  scene  and  leaves  the  field  of  battle  to  the  Bedlamites. 

The  fury  had  subsided  in  1805,  and  Rowley  held  that 
many  medical  men  were  deeply  ashamed  of  the  extrava- 
gance into  which  they  had  been  committed,  but  lacked 
courage  to  make  frank  confession. 

Rowley  died  in  1806,  and  the  regard  in  which  he  was 
held  was  manifest  in  the  crowds  who  flocked  to  his 
funeral.  In  the  Roll  of  Physicians,  Dr.  Munk  observes — 

Dr.  Eowley  was  a  determined  opponent  of  Vaccination,  and 
obtained  an  unenviable  notoriety  by  his  association  with  Dr. 
Moseley  in  opposing  every  conceivable  obstacle  to  the  reception  and 
progress  of  that  invaluable  discovery. 

The  obstacles  interposed  were  matters-of-fact,  and  as 
matters-of-fact  were  recognised  and  prevailed. 

The   controversy  that   followed   the   introduction  of 


300  VACCINATION. 


Vaccination  "  gave  birth,"  says  the  Edinburgh  reviewer, 
"  to  an  infinite  number  of  publications  of  all  descriptions" 
from  which  he  could  only  select  the  most  characteristic. 
Among  these  we  find  Dr.  Squirrel,  whose  book  is 
described  "  as  the  most  entertaining  of  the  whole  " — 

We  will  venture  to  say,  though  we  know  it  to  be  a  bold  assertion, 
that  there  never  was  anything  so  ill-written,  or  so  vulgar  and 
absurd,  produced  before  by  a  person  entitling  himself  a  Doctor  of 
Medicine.  There  is  a  certain  nimbleness  and  agility  about  him, 
however,  which  keeps  us  in  good  humour,  and  he  whisks  about 
with  such  a  self-satisfied  springiness  and  activity,  that  it  is  really 
enlivening  to  look  on  him. 

Turning  up  Squirrel's  pamphlet*  I  find  little  or  nothing 
to  warrant  this  description.  It  is  not  ill-written,  if 
judged  by  the  standard  of  medical  literature,  and  the 
"  springiness  "  is  a  conceit  of  the  reviewer's  to  sport  with 
the  Doctor's  name.  My  own  impression  is  that  Squirrel 
was  a  dull  fellow,  jealous  of  cowpox  as  injurious  to  the 
trade  in  smallpox  inoculation,  and  that  he  availed  himself 
of  the  depression  in  the  vaccination  business  to  assert 
its  superiority.  He  admits,  indeed,  that  he  kept  silent 
during  the  Jennerian  furore,  "but  the  overwhelming 
torrent  being  gradually  reduced  to  a  feeble  current,"  he 
reckoned  that  he  "might  now  promulgate  his  opinion 
with  a  reasonable  hope  of  success."  He  cites  Jenner's 
account  of  the  origin  of  cowpox  in  the  greasy  heels  of 
horses,  and  proceeds  to  argue  that  the  disease  is  scrofula, 
which  its  inoculation  is  certain  to  diffuse,  whilst  affording 
no  protection  from  smallpox.  He  then  adduces  a  number 
of  cases  in  proof  that  inoculated  cowpox  had  not  averted 
smallpox,  and  had  in  several  instances  brought  on  serious 
and  fatal  ailments. 


*  Observations  on  the  Cowpox  showing  that  it  originates  in  Scrophula, 
commonly  called  the  Evil;  illustrated  with  Cases  to  prove  that  it  is  no 
Security  against  the  Smallpox.  Also  pointing  out  the  dreadful  Conse- 
quences of  this  new  Disease,  so  recently  and  rashly  introduced  into  the 
Human  Constitution.  By  R.  Squirrel,  M.D.,  formerly  Resident  Apothe- 
cary to  the  Smallpox  and  Inoculation  Hospital.  London,  1805.  Pp. 
76.  A  Second  edition  appeared  in  1806. 


MOSELEY,  ROWLEY  AND  SQUIRREL.  301 

Jenner  in  a  letter  to  Moore  from  Berkeley,  28th 
February,  1810,  thus  refers  to  Squirrel — 

John  Gale  Jones,  I  see,  has  at  length  succeeded  in  obtaining  the 
situation  for  which  he  has  long  been  a  candidate.  This  fellow  had 
once  the  impudence  to  desire  a  man  to  call  on  me  in  Bedford  Place 
to  say,  that  he,  Jones,  would  advise  me  immediately  to  quit 
London,  for  there  was  no  knowing  what  an  enraged  populace 
might  do.  He  was  the  writer  of  Squirrel's  book,  the  long  anti- 
vaccine  columns  in  the  Independent  Whig,  and  many  of  the  most 
violent  papers  in  the  Medical  Observer.  I  was  held  up  in  his 
Forum  for  several  nights  as  an  object  of  derision ;  but  I  silenced 
him  by  the  same  weapon  as  I  have  others — contempt.* 

Jenner's  contempt  was  of  a  miraculous  quality,  oper- 
ating insensibly  upon  those  to  whom  it  was  applied. 
Some  might  fancy  it  was  his  idleness  and  others  his 
cowardice ;  but  he  knew  that  it  was  his  contempt)  and 
that  it  blasted  his  adversaries  in  much  the  same  way 
that  vaccination  blasted  smallpox. 

There  is  the  woeful  monotony  of  truth  in  these  old 
pamphlets,  not  merely  in  the  occurrence  of  smallpox 
after  vaccination,  but  in  the  sadder  stories  of  acute  and 
chronic  blood-poisoning.  We  recognise  the  narratives 
as  true,  for  they  are  reproduced  among  us  continuously 
by  the  same  means,  with  the  same  miseries  and  agonies, 
and  with  the  same  death  for  grateful  release. 

It  is  clear  from  the  testimony  of  Moseley,  Rowley  and 
Squirrel,  confirmed  too  by  others  and  by  the  Jennerites 
themselves,  that  the  extension  of  vaccination  met  with  a 
decided  check  in  London.  It  was  proved  to  many  in  a 
fashion  that  did  not  admit  of  dispute,  that  vaccination 
conferred  no  security  from  smallpox,  whilst  it  was 
attended  with  dangers  to  health,  certain  if  as  yet 
undefinable.  Variolous  inoculation  was  again  reverted 
to,  but  by  diminished  numbers ;  for  that  practice  never 
had  prevailed  with  popular  good-will,  but  through  sedu- 
lous medical  persuasion  as  duty  of  dire  necessity. 
Vaccination  afforded  excuse  for  hesitation,  and,  between 
rival  claims,  many  contrived  to  elude  either  form  of 

*  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  ii.,  p.  367. 


302  VACCINATION. 


pollution.  Thus  indirectly  as  it  were,  vaccine  inoculation 
set  aside  variolous,  and  when  in  1840  the  latter  was 
forbidden  by  law,  there  was  little  of  the  practice  left, 
whilst  at  the  same  time  the  majority  of  the  population 
existed  without  Jennerian  protection. 

It  is  not  to  be  forgotten  that  the  early  resistance  to 
vaccination  proceeded  entirely  from  inoculators  with 
smallpox.  It  was  as  yet  unimagined  that  smallpox  and 
other  fevers  were  preventible,  that  their  causes  lay 
within  control,  and  that  health  was  the  best  defence  of 
health.  The  world  as  yet  lay  in  darkness  as  to  those 
truths  which  we  now  recognise  as  laws  of  health,  hygiene, 
and  sanitary  science ;  nor  has  the  darkness  rolled  away, 
but  is  rolling  away,  and  the  time  is  not  distant  when  to 
be  vaccinated  in  order  to  be  safe  from  smallpox  will  be 
accounted  the  drollest  of  absurdities. 

Going  back  to  the  Edinburgh  Review,  we  remark 
with  curious  interest  how  the  chief  position  then  asserted 
was  the  abiding  efficacy  of  vaccination.  Inoculators 
were  ready  to  concede  that  it  might  possess  a  temporary 
prophylaxy,  inasmuch  as  until  one  blood  fever  had 
subsided  another  was  unlikely  to  supervene  ;  but  this 
view  Jeffrey  declined  to  entertain — 

It  seems  contrary  to  all  analogy,  and  all  rules  of  reasoning  to 
suppose,  d  priori,  that  an  immunity  which  is  found  to  subsist  for  a 
certain  time  in  the  usual  and  healthful  state  of  the  system,  will 
gradually  and  insensibly  wear  away  without  any  apparent  cause, 
or  any  sensible  change  to  indicate  its  extinction  ;  and  the  facts 
which  bear  at  all  upon  the  question,  so  far  from  suggesting  or 
supporting  such  a  supposition,  seem,  in  our  apprehension,  com- 
pletely to  refute  and  discredit  it. 

Yet  what  in  1806  was  accounted  "contrary  to  all 
analogy,"  and  "completely  refuted  and  discredited  by 
facts,"  is  precisely  what  vaccinators  now  admit.  Hence 
their  cry  for  re-vaccination — septennially,  triennially, 
annually.  Dr.  Lionel  Beale,  a  great  authority  in  the 
matter,  recently  owned  to  having  been  vaccinated  ten 
times,  and  in  terror  of  an  epidemic  was  about  to  be 
vaccinated  once  more — a  striking  exemplification  of 


WILLIAM  COBBETT.  303 


contemporary  theory  and  practice.  To  have  foreseen 
such  an  issue  would  have  confounded  the  early  vaccina- 
tors.  When  re- vaccination  was  mentioned  to  Dr.  Pearson, 
he  denied  its  possibility ;  "  for,"  said  he,  "  Vaccination  is 
equivalent  to  smallpox,  which  cannot  recur.  If  a  child 
can  be  re-vaccinated,  then  it  can  take  smallpox ;  ergo 
vaccination  is  not  an  equivalent  for  smallpox ;  and  where 
then  is  the  good  of  it  ? "  Where  indeed  ! 

The  Edinburgh  reviewer  was  sufficiently  impartial  to 
recognise  violence  alike  among  Cowpoxers  and  Small- 
poxers,  and  specified  John  Ring,  Jenner's  bully,  as  an 
offender,  describing  his  Treatise  on  Cowpox  as  "  one 
thousand  and  forty  chaotic  pages  in  defence  of  the  new 
practice."  Ring  verified  the  criticism  by  issuing  a 
pamphlet,  The  Beauties  of  the  Edinburgh  Review  alias 
the  Stink-Pot  of  Literature ;  reminding  us  of  the  man 
who  writing  to  his  wife  from  an  inn-parlour  remarked, 
"  I  must  conclude,  for  an  unmannerly  Irishman  is  looking 
over  my  shoulder  and  reading  every  word  I  write ; "  an 
observation  that  was  immediately  clenched  with,  "  You 
are  a  liar,  sir ;  a  liar  ! " 


CHAPTER     XXII. 

WILLIAM   COBBETT. 

EVERYBODY  appeals  to  common-sense,  but  what  is  com- 
mon-sense ?  It  is  a  question  difficult  to  answer ;  and 
yet,  as  I  propose  to  show  that  Cobbett's  opposition  to 
vaccination  was  justified  by  common-sense,  I  am  bound 
to  give  some  definition  of  the  term. 

Common-sense  is  reason  as  evolved  from  common 
experience.  What  the  multitude  of  men  have  found  to 
be  true  in  the  course  of  life,  that  is  common-sense,  which 
to  question  or  resist  is  folly  or  fanaticism.  This  vulgar 
and  vigorous  rationality  is  often  summoned  to  service 
where  it  has  no  vocation.  For  example,  when  it 


304  VACCINATION. 

was  first  taught  that  the  earth  was  a  sphere  and  that 
its  inhabitants  had  antipodes,  the  revelation  was  de- 
nounced as  contrary  to  common-sense ;  but  it  is 
obvious  that  in  such  a  case  (which  represents  myriads) 
it  was  wrongly  invoked  ;  the  form  of  the  earth  being  at 
the  time  outside  common  cognisance.  As  soon,  however, 
as  it  was  realised  by  experience  that  the  earth  was 
spherical  and  inhabited  in  all  its  quarters,  then  its 
rotundity  became  incorporated  in  the  constitution  of 
common-sense. 

The  realm  of  common-sense  I  therefore  hold  to  be 
limited  by  its  origin  in  common  experience,  and  in 
matters  above  or  beyond  that  experience,  its  dicta  are 
illegitimate,  and  synonyms  for  presumption  and  pre- 
judice. 

William  Cobbett  was  essentially  a  man  of  common- 
sense.  His  power  lay  in  his  community  with  the  experi- 
ence and  reason  of  his  countrymen ;  and,  like  all  of  us, 
he  had  the  defects  of  his  virtue.  He  continually  applied 
his  vulgar  judgment  to  the  criticism  of  men  and  matters 
beyond  the  range  of  his  competence,  and  the  result  was 
a  luxuriance  of  arrogance  and  contempt  for  which  at 
this  day  we  must  resort  to  Mr.  Euskin  for  a  parallel. 

Such  being  the  case,  we  have  to  inquire,  What  was  the 
worth  of  Cobbett's  opinion  in  the  matter  of  vaccination  ? 
The  attempt  is  sometimes  made  by  vaccinators  to  with- 
draw their  practice  from  popular  discussion.  They  say 
it  is  a  medical  question  for  medical  men ;  but  the  asser- 
tion provokes  suspicion  rather  than  confidence,  for 
mystery  is  an  invariable  note  of  imposture.  It  is  fair,  I 
allow,  to  say  of  any  abstruse  knowledge  that  it  can  only 
be  apprehended  by  those  whose  faculties  are  trained  for 
its  apprehension ;  but  what  is  there  abstruse  about 
vaccination  ?  With  little  trouble,  everybody  may  know 
as  much  about  it  as  anybody.  It  is  the  simplest  of  sur- 
gical operations.  It  is  almost  as  easy  as  taking  pills — 
instead  of  putting  poison  down  the  throat  it  is  inserted 
into  the  skin.  The  operation  may  result  in  any  number 
of  pathological  complications,  but  whether  such  complica- 


WILLIAM  COBBETT.  305 

tions  be  admitted  or  denied,  what  vaccination  is  pre- 
scribed1" for,  namely,  the  prevention  of  smallpox,  comes 
within  the  range  of  common  observation.  What,  there- 
fore, I  have  to  answer  is,  that  Cobbett's  common-sense 
was  competent  to  deliver  judgment  upon  vaccination. 

Moreover,  the  circumstances  of  the  time  compelled  an 
opinion :  silence  or  neutrality  was  impossible.  England 
was  swarming  with  vaccinators.  All  the  fussy  folk 
who  had  a  taste  for  doing  much  good  at  little  cost  were 
plying  the  cowpox  lancet.  Encouraged  by  Jenner,  they 
got  vaccine,  inoculated  a  victim,  and  propagated  the 
virus  from  arm  to  arm.  Here  I  may  let  Cobbett  speak 
for  himself — 

This  nation  is  fond  of  quackery  of  all  sorts ;  and  this  particular 
quackery  having  been  sanctioned  by  King,  Lords,  and  Commons, 
it  spread  over  the  country  like  a  pestilence  borne  by  the  winds. 
Speedily  sprang  up  the  Eoyal  Jennerian  Institution,  and  branch 
institutions  issuing  from  the  parent  trunk,  set  instantly  to  work, 
impregnating  the  veins  of  the  rising  generation  with  the  beastly 
matter.  ,  Gentlemen  and  ladies  made  the  commodity  a  pocket 
companion  ;  and  if  a  cottager's  child  was  seen  by  them  on  a 
common  (in  Hampshire  at  least)  and  did  not  quickly  take  to  its 
heels,  it  was  certain  to  carry  off  more  or  less  of  the  disease  of  the 
cow.  One  would  have  thought  that  half  the  cows  in  the  country 
had  been  tapped  to  get  such  a  quantity  of  stuff.* 

Nor  was  vaccination  merely  forced  on  Cobbett's  at- 
tention as  a  popular  craze.  He  had  to  deal  with  it  as  a 
possible  compulsory  infliction.  At  a  public  meeting  in 
1803,  Wilberforce  and  Dr.  Clarke  advocated  the  prohibi- 
tion of  smallpox  inoculation  and  the  enforcement  of 
vaccination ;  and  Cobbett,  in  a  letter  addressed  to  Wil- 
berforce, rebuked  the  arbitrary  project  in  a  strain  im- 
pressive and  dignified  as  that  of  Burke  himself.  He 
wrote — 

It  seems  there  are  prejudices  against  cowpox  which  it  is  necess- 
ary to  destroy  by  force.  That  there  are  prejudices,  and  very 
strong  ones  too,  I  am  ready  to  allow,  but  I  cannot  agree  that  these 
prejudices  should  be  eradicated  by  force  ;  nor  is  it  perhaps  fair  to 
use  the  degrading  term  as  expressive  of  the  dislike  which  so  large 
a  portion  of  the  community  entertain  to  the  practice  you  are  so 

*  Advice  to  Young  Men.     London,  1837.     Sec.  262. 
20 


306  VACCINATION. 


anxious  to  compel  them  to  adopt.  The  charge  of  prejudice  has 
been  preferred  but  too  often,  and  with  but  too  fatal  success  against 
every  one  opposed  to  change.  The  truth  is  that  whoever  has  been 
found  to  object  to  innovation,  however  wild  in  itself,  however 
destructive  in  its  consequences,  has  constantly  been  accused  of 
prejudice ;  and  as  prejudice  thus  used  implies  a  mixture  of  ignor- 
ance andperverseness,  and  as  few  persons  are  willing  to  be  thought 
ignorant  and  perverse,  the  imputation  is  employed  to  coerce  assent 
where  reason  hesitates. 

He  then  aptly  applied  the  repudiated  recommendation 
of  inoculation  with  smallpox  as  cause  for  hesitation  in 
assenting  to  inoculation  with  cowpox — 

There  was,  you  must  well  remember,  a  strong  and  general  objec- 
tion, which  for  a  long  time  prevailed,  against  Inoculation  with 
Smallpox  ;  and  you  cannot  have  forgotten  that  this  objection  was 
termed  prejudice,  and  the  persons  entertaining  it  were  regarded  as 
illiterate,  ignorant,  or  perverse;  yet  it  now  appears  from  the 
Address  of  your  Royal  Jennerian  Society  that  it  would  have  been 
well  for  the  human  race  if  the  prejudices  of  those  illiterate,  ignor- 
ant, or  perverse  persons  had  universally  obtained ;  for  you  now 
tell  us  that  "  Inoculation  by  spreading  the  contagion  has  con- 
siderably increased  the  mortality  of  Smallpox."  With  an  example 
like  this  before  our  eyes,  Ought  we  not  to  be  very  cautious  how  we 
adopt  your  new  system  of  Inoculation  with  Cowpox  ? 

Then  turning  upon  Wilberforce  in  his  favourite  char- 
acter of  constitutional  Englishman,  he  proceeded — 

Give  me  leave  to  ask  you,  Sir,  how  you  reconcile  a  proposition 
to  enforce  this  novel  practice  with  the  spirit  of  that  Constitution 
of  which  you  profess  to  be  so  great  an  admirer,  and  with  that 
freedom  of  which  you  wish  to  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  principal 
supporters  ?  What  I  am  opposed  to,  and  what  I  am  alarmed  at, 
is  the  proposition  to  obtain  an  Act  of  Parliament  which  would  in 
its  operation  be  nothing  short  of  compulsion  on  every  man  to  suffer 
the  veins  of  his  child  to  be  impregnated  with  the  disease  of  a  beast 
— a  measure  to  be  adopted  in  no  country  where  the  people  are  not 
vassals  or  slaves. 

Lastly  came  these  remarks  which  at  this  day  have 
force  and  application  greater  even  than  when  written — 

I  like  not  this  never-ending  recurrence  to  Acts  of  Parliament. 
Something  must  be  left,  and  something  ought  to  be  left,  to  the 
sense  and  reason  and  morality  and  religion  of  the  people.  There 
are  a  set  of  well-meaning  men  in  this  country,  who  would  pass 
laws  for  the  regulating  and  restraining  of  every  feeling  of  the 
human  breast,  and  every  motion  of  the  human  frame  :  they  would 


WILLIAM  COBBETT.  307 

bind  us  down,  hair  by  hair,  as  the  Liliputians  did  Gulliver,  till 
anon,  when  we  awoke  from  our  sleep,  we  should  wonder  by  whom 
we  had  been  enslaved.  But  I  trust,  Sir,  that  Parliament  is  not, 
and  never  will  be,  so  far  under  the  influence  of  these  minute  and 
meddling  politicians  as  to  be  induced  to  pass  laws  for  taking  out  of 
a  man's  hands  the  management  of  his  household,  the  choice  of  his 
physician,  and  the  care  of  the  health  of  his  children ;  for,  under 
this  sort  of  domiciliary  thraldom,  to  talk  of  the  liberty  of  the  coun- 
try would  be  the  most  cruel  mockery  wherewith  an  humble  and 
subjected  people  were  ever  insulted/'' 

Cobbett,  be  it  observed,  thus  addressed  Wilberforce  in 
1803,  when  vaccination  was  as  yet  imperfectly  tested, 
and  its  advocates  were  in  the  full  blast  of  enthusiastic 
persuasion  that  to  be  Jennerised  was  to  be  made  proof 
against  smallpox  for  ever.  When  Cobbett  had  again 
occasion  to  write  about  cowpox,  six  years  had  passed 
away,  bearing  with  them  the  phantastic  certainty  with 
which  vaccination  had  been  imposed  upon  public  cre- 
dulity. Nevertheless  the  practice  was  not  abandoned : 
quackery  once  alive  and  lucrative,  dies  hard :  but  it  was 
discredited,  and  its  apologists  exercised  their  ingenuity 
in  devising  explanations  and  excuses  for  its  manifest 
failures.  The  Royal  Jennerian  Society  had  split  between 
Jenner  and  Walker,  and  application  to  Parliament  was 
resolved  upon  for  two  purposes — first,  to  save  Jenner 
from  poverty;  and  second,  to  provide  funds  for  the 
maintenance  of  vaccination,  voluntary  subscriptions  hav- 
ing fallen  off  irretrievably.  In  short,  vaccination  had 
broken  down,  and  the  House  of  Commons  was  called 
upon  to  save  it  from  extinction.  There  were  wire-pullers 
in  the  House  and  out  of  the  House  who  were  com- 
promised by  their  patronage  of  Jenner  and  his  imposture, 
and  they  had  the  craft  and  the  power  to  transfer  the 
responsibility  of  which  they  were  sick  to  the  national 
exchequer.  With  this  explanation,  we  shall  understand 
the  following  article  from  the  Register  of  18th  June, 
1808.  Cobbett  wrote— 

This  experiment  with  Cowpox,  which  has  cost  the  nation  .£30,000 
to  Dr.  Jenner,  is  now,  it  seems,  to  have  an  Act  of  Parliament  to 

*  Political  Register,  22nd  January,  1803. 


308  VACCINATION. 


give  it  currency.  Mr.  Eose  has  brought  in  a  bill  for  the  purpose 
of  establishing  a  central  institution  in  London  for  the  distribution 
of  Cowpox  matter,  which  bill  in  all  appearance  will  pass ;  and  this 
disgusting  and  degrading  remedy  will  cost  the  nation  another 
,£4,000  or  £5,000  annually,  though  it  has  been  clearly  proved  not 
to  have  answered  the  purpose  intended.  This,  however,  I  regard 
as  cheap  when  compared  with  the  menace  of  Mr.  Fuller,  who,  in 
the  debate,  proposed  a  compulsory  law  on  the  subject.  He  took 
up  the  old  idea  of  Mr.  Wilberforce,  who  was  for  a  law  to  prevent 
parents  from  having  their  children  inoculated  with  Smallpox  unless 
they  chose  to  send  them  to  pest-houses,  or  to  some  place  at  a  con- 
siderable distance  from  any  other  habitations.  This  cruel  and 
tyrannical  proposition  I  opposed  at  the  time  ;  and  I  am  happy  to 
perceive  that  it  is  now  almost  universally  exploded. 

Whilst  Cobbett  could  not  arrest  the  action  of  Parlia- 
ment, he  was  short-sighted  in  considering  that  the  pro- 
posed endowment  of  vaccination  was  merely  a  question 
of  the  loss  of  a  few  thousands  a  year.  We  are  saddled 
with  vaccination  at  this  day,  its  costs  and  mischiefs,  by 
reason  of  the  vote  for  the  National  Vaccine  Establish- 
ment in  1808.  As  soon  as  an  annual  subsidy  is  placed 
on  the  estimates,  interests  are  created,  which  not  only 
perpetuate  themselves,  but  constantly  tend  to  enlarge- 
ment ;  and  such  interests,  once  created,  can  only  be  got 
rid  of  when  proved  useless  by  agitation  out  of  doors  and 
persistent  pressure  on  the  House  of  Commons. 

Referring  to  a  notorious  outbreak  of  smallpox  among 
a  vaccinated  population  at  Ringwood  in  Hampshire, 
Cobbett  continued — 

I  should  like  to  have  heard  Mr.  Rose's  statement  of  the  circum- 
stances at  Ringwood,  whence,  he  says,  it  is  evident  that  the  failure 
arose  "from  the  use  of  improper  matter."  That  many  persons, 
who  had  been  inoculated  with  Cowpox,  caught  Smallpox  and  died 
at  Ringwood,  is  a  fact  that  even  the  Royal  Jennerian  Society 
cannot  deny ;  and  this  being  the  case,  what  man  in  his  senses  will 
put  any  faith  in  the  efficacy  of  Cowpox  as  a  preventive  of  Small- 
pox ?  The  thing  is  done.  It  has  failed,  and  it  is  vain  to  endeav- 
our to  prop  up  its  reputation ;  for,  in  a  few  years,  it  will  become 
proverbial  as  humbug. 

A  prophecy,  it  will  be  said,  that  has  not  been  fulfilled. 
True:  but  in  Cobbett's  time  it  advanced  far  to  fulfilment. 
All  the  unqualified  promises  under  which  vaccination 


WILLIAM  COBBETT.  309 

was  brought  into  practice,  were  one  by  one  surrendered 
under  the  compulsion  of  experience.  The  mass  of  the 
people  remained  unvaccinated ;  the  zeal  for  vaccinating 
the  poor  abated ;  and  the  practice  continued  among  the 
middle  and  upper  classes  on  the  humblest  pretexts — as 
something  that  might  hinder  or  mitigate  smallpox,  and 
in  any  case  do  little  harm.  We  have  to  recollect  that 
the  mania  for  vaccination  which  now  prevails  is  a  revival 
of  a  prescription  which  our  forefathers  had  tested  and 
found  wanting.  Vaccination  fell  into  neglect,  not  because 
there  was  indifference  to  smallpox,  but  because  it  did  not 
prevent  that  disease. 

The  excuse  for  the  first  failures  of  vaccination  was, 
that  spurious  cowpox  must  have  been  employed — spurious 
cowpox  being  the  artful  invention  of  Jenner  to  cover 
disasters ;  artful,  and  yet  absurd,  for  how  could  cowpox 
exist  spuriously  any  more  than  smallpox  ?  The  precise 
fact,  that  spurious  cowpox  was  the  dodge  of  an  un- 
scrupulous quack  was  unknown  to  Cobbett,  but  he  was 
sharp  enough  to  recognise  imposture,  and  thus  wrote — 

The  pretext  of  spurious  matter  is  the  weakest  defence  that  ever 
was  set  up,  because  it  is  evident  that  such  will  always  be  an  excuse. 
The  Methodist  pike  who  told  his  shoal  of  gudgeons  that  if  they 
had  faith,  they  might  jump  into  a  chalk  pit  without  so  much  as 
spraining  their  ankles,  answered  all  their  reproaches  with  saying, 
that  their  broken  bones  were  owing  to  their  own  sin  in  not  having 
faith,  and  referred,  for  proof,  to  one  among  them  who  had  acci- 
dentally escaped  unhurt.  All  who  catch  Smallpox  and  die  have 
been  Cowpoxed  with  spurious  matter,  and  all  who  have  not  yet 
caught  Smallpox,  after  the  Cowpox  operation,  have  had  the  pure 
matter ;  and  so  it  will  be,  to  be  sure,  to  the  end  of  the  chapter. 

Who  is  to  collect  this  genuine  matter,  and  whence  is  it  to  come  ? 
Who  shall  tell  whether  he  inoculate  with  Cowpox  or  King's  Evil  ? 
Or  with  many  other  disorders,  one  of  which  I  will  not  name,  but 
which  I  do  hope,  that  fathers  and  mothers  who  have  given  their 
children  that  greatest  of  blessing,  a  pure  stream  of  blood,  will  not 
forget  when  they  are  about  to  cause  that  blood  to  be  impregnated 
with  matter  taken  from  the  ulcerous  bodies  of  others. 

In  this  latter  warning,  we  have  to  remark  Cobbett's 
prescience.  He  knew  that  it  was  impossible  to  transfer 
organic  virus  from  arm-to-arrn  without  transferring  more 
than  was  intended,  inclusive  of  the  dreadful  disease  he 


VACCINATION. 


indicated.  Yaccinators  naturally  denied  the  possibility 
of  such  extra  transmission  ;  for  if  they  had  admitted  the 
possibility,  they  must  have  ceased  to  vaccinate.  M. 
Ricord  has  put  the  alternative  plainly  — 

The  obvious  fact  is,  that  if  ever  the  transmission  of  this  disease 
with  vaccine  lymph  is  clearly  demonstrated,  Vaccination  must  be 
altogether  discontinued. 

The  clear  demonstration  demanded  by  M.  Ricord  has 
been  abundantly  supplied;  and  what  at  one  time  was 
conveniently  considered  questionable,  is  now  openly 
confessed.  Mr.  Brudenell  Carter,  writing  in  the  Medical 
Examiner,  24th  May,  1877,  testifies  — 

I  think  that  syphilitic  contamination  by  vaccine  lymph  is  by  no 
means  an  unusual  occurrence,  and  that  it  is  very  generally  over- 
looked because  people  do  not  know  either  when  or  where  to  look 
for  it.  I  think  that  a  large  proportion  of  the  cases  of  apparently 
inherited  syphilis  are  in  reality  vaccinal  ;  and  that  the  syphilis  in 
these  cases  does  not  show  itself  until  the  age  of  from  eight  to  ten 
years,  by  which  time  the  relation  between  cause  and  effect  is  apt 
to  be  lost  sight  of. 

And  we  have  Sir  Thomas  Watson's  memorable  declara- 
tion in  the  Nineteenth  Century,  June,  1878  — 

I  can  readily  sympathise  with,  and  even  applaud,  a  father  who, 
with  the  presumed  dread  or  misgiving  in  his  mind,  is  willing  to 
submit  to  multiplied  judicial  penalties  rather  than  expose  his  child 
to  the  risk  of  an  infection  so  ghastly. 

Thus  belated,  thus  after  infinite  mischief  to  the  public 
health,  the  Nestor  of  Medicine  appears  and  solemnly 
allows  that  the  warning  of  William  Cobbett,  given 
seventy  years  before,  was  a  true  warning,  and  that 
worthy  of  praise  are  the  wise  parents  who  give  it  heed. 

Cobbett,  grateful  for  escape  from  compulsory  vaccina- 
tion, overlooked,  I  said,  the  danger  perpetuated  through 
the  endowment  of  the  practice.  He  was  overjoyed  at 
Canning's  emphatic  declaration,  that  "  he  could  not 
imagine  any  circumstances  whatever  that  would  induce 
him  to  follow  up  the  most  favourable  report  of  the 
infallibility  of  vaccination  with  any  measure  for  its 
compulsory  infliction."  Hence  he  continued  — 


WILLIAM  COBBETT.  311 

I  am  glad  to  perceive  that  the  Ministry  took  care  to  intimate 
their  decided  hostility  to  any  law  for  propagating  Cowpox  by/orce, 
by  the  aid  of  pains  and  penalties.  This  being  the  case,  I  care 
little  about  Mr.  Eose  and  his  Cowpox  Institution.  Those  who 
choose  to  have  their  children  impregnated  from,  that  shop,  will  be 
at  liberty  to  do  so  ;  and  those  who  wish  to  avoid  it,  may.  This  is 
all  right ;  though  it  may  be  very  foolish  for  Government  to  inter- 
fere in  such  a  matter.  I  think  we  may  thank  the  events  at  Eing- 
wood  for  the  ministerial  protest  against  compulsory  measures.  It 
would  have  been  curious  enough  to  see  people  paying  penalties 
for  being  so  obstinate  as  not  to  consult  their  own  health,  or  that  of 
their  children. 

What  Cobbett  thought  would  be  "  curious  enough"  we 
witness  daily.  English  liberty,  if  it  has  advanced  in 
some  directions,  has  gone  back  in  others  since  Cobbett 
wrote.  Parents  are  now  haled  before  magistrates,  fined 
and  imprisoned,  because  (knowing  that  vaccination 
cannot  avert  smallpox,  whilst  it  may  seriously  injure 
the  health  of  their  children,  and  even  cost  them  their 
lives)  they  refuse  to  submit  to  the  infliction.  Never, 
perhaps,  was  there  a  more  impious  invasion  of  liberty 
than  compulsory  vaccination,  and  yet  we  have  free  and 
enlightened  Englishmen  who  excuse  and  defend  it ! 
These  are  the  Pharisees  of  Liberalism,  blatant  over 
tyranny,  extinct  or  foreign,  but  dull  to  similar  tyranny 
within  their  own  domain.  They  garnish  the  sepulchres 
of  the  prophets  of  freedom,  but  (in  their  petty  measure) 
repeat  the  deeds  of  those  who  persecuted  and  slew  them. 

Lastly,  in  the  article  from  which  I  have  been  quoting, 
Cobbett  assumed  that  the  resort  to  the  House  of  Com- 
mons for  money  was  evidence  that  the  enthusiasm  for 
vaccination  was  abating.  He  wrote — 

The  present  application  to  Parliament  is  a  pretty  good  proof 
that  Cowpox  is  beginning  to  be  blowed  upon.  The  Eoyal  Jennerian 
Society  wants  funds.  The  subscribers  have  fallen  off;  and  so 
application  to  the  public  purse  has  become  necessary.  Why  have 
the  subscribers  fallen  off?  Their  humanity  has  not  waxed  cold. 
It  were  slander,  indeed,  to  suppose  that.  But  I  suspect  that 
their  faith  has  waxed  cold  ;  and  when  that  is  the  case,  zeal  soon 
slackens  its  operations,  more  especially  when  these  operations  con- 
sist chiefly  in  the  expenditure  of  money. 

The  fact  was,  that  as  vaccination  failures  multiplied, 


VACCINATION. 


Jenner  tried,  more  suo,  to  make  a  scape-goat  of  Walker, 
the  Resident  Inoculator  of  the  Royal  Jennerian  Society. 
There  was  a  dreadful  row,  and  a  secession  of  the  better 
part  of  the  members  with  Walker,  who  set  up  the  Lon- 
don Vaccine  Institution.  Those  who  adhered  to  Jenner 
were  not  of  the  philanthropic  and  subscribing  order,  but 
they  had  political  influence,  and  used  it  to  get  rid  of 
their  liabilities,  first  in  obtaining  a  vote  of  £20,000  for 
Jenner,  and  second  in  the  establishment  of  a  National 
Vaccine  Establishment  with  a  subsidy  of  £3,000  a  year. 

So  far  Cobbett  in  his  Register,  where  he  had  no  occa- 
sion to  discuss  vaccination  again ;  but  toward  the  end 
of  his  life,  1829-30,  he  produced  a  series  of  papers  en- 
titled Advice  to  Young  Men,  in  which  he  reiterated  and 
enforced  his  protest  against  the  Jennerian  imposture — 

I  contend  [he  wrote]  that  the  beastly  application  could  not,  in 
nature,  be  efficacious  in  preventing  Smallpox,  the  truth  of  which 
assertion  has  now  been  proved  in  thousands  upon  thousands  of 
instances.  For  a  long  time,  for  ten  years,  the  contrary  was 
boldly  and  brazenly  asserted.  .  .  But  Smallpox,  in  its  worst 
form,  broke  out  at  Bingwood,  and  carried  off,  I  believe  (I  have  not 
the  account  at  hand),  more  than  a  hundred  persons,  young  and 
old,  every  one  ofwlwm  had  had  the  Cowpox  "so  nicely.'"  And  what 
was  then  said?  Was  the  quackery  exploded?  Not  at  all:  the 
failure  was  imputed  to  unskilful  operators :  to  the  staleness  of 
the  matter :  to  its  not  being  of  the  genuine  quality.  Admitting  all 
this,  the  scheme  stood  condemned  ;  for  the  great  advantages  held 
forth  were,  that  anybody  might  perform  the  operation,  and  that 
the  matter  was  everywhere  abundant  and  cost  free. 

But  these  were  paltry  excuses  :  the  mere  shuffles  of  quackery ; 
for  what  do  we  know  now  ?  Why,  that  in  hundreds  of  instances, 
persons  Cowpoxed  by  JENNER  HIMSELF,  have  taken  the  real  Small- 
pox afterwards,  and  have  either  died  from  the  disorder  or  narrowly 
escaped  with  their  lives  !  I  will  mention  two  instances.  The 
first  is  Sir  Richard  Phillips,  whose  son,  several  years  after  Jenner 
had  given  him  the  insuring  matter,  had  a  very  hard  struggle  for 
life,  under  the  hands  of  the  old-fashioned,  seam-giving,  and 
dimple- dipping  Smallpox.  The  second  is  Philip  Codd,  Esq.,  of 
Eumstead  Court,  near  Maidstone,  whose  son  had  a  very  narrow 
escape  under  the  real  Smallpox,  and  who  also  had  been  Cowpoxed 
by  Jenner  himself.  Mr.  Codd  I  have  known,  and  have  most 
sincerely  respected,  from  the  time  of  our  both  being  eighteen  years 
of  age.  When  the  young  gentleman,  his  son,  was  very  young,  I, 
having  him  on  my  knee  one  day,  asked  his  kind  and  excellent 


WILLIAM  COBBETT.  313 

mother  whether  he  had  heen  inoculated.  "Oh,  no!"  said  she, 
"we  are  going  to  have  him  vaccinated.'11  Whereupon  I,  going 
into  the  garden  to  the  father,  said,  "  I  do  hope,  Codd,  that  you  are 
not  going  to  have  that  beastly  cow-stuff  put  into  that  fine  boy." 
*'  Why,"  said  he,  "  you  see,  Cobbett,  it  is  to  be  done  by  Jenner 
himself."  What  answer  I  gave,  what  names  and  epithets  I  be- 
stowed upon  Jenner  and  his  quackery,  I  will  leave  the  reader  to 
imagine. 

Now,  here  are  instances  enough  ;  but  every  reader  has  heard  of, 
if  not  seen,  scores  of  others.  Young  Mr.  Codd  caught  Smallpox  at 
a  school ;  and  if  I  recollect  rightly,  there  were  several  other  vac- 
cinated youths  who  did  the  same  at  the  same  time.  Quackery, 
however,  has  always  a  shuffle  left.  Now  that  Cowpox  has  been 
proved  to  be  no  guarantee  against  Smallpox,  it  makes  it  milder 
when  it  comes  !  A  pretty  shuffle,  indeed,  this !  You  are  to  be 
all  your  life  in  fear  of  it,  having  as  your  sole  consolation,  that  when 
it  comes  (and  it  may  overtake  you  in  a  camp  or  on  the  seas)  it 
will  be  milder  !  It  was  not  too  mild  to  kill  at  Eingwood,  and  its 
mildness,  in  the  case  of  young  Mr.  Codd,  did  not  restrain  it  from 
blinding  him  for  a  suitable  number  of  days. 

I  shall  not  easily  forget  the  alarm  and  anxiety  of  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Codd  on  this  occasion — both  of  them  the  best  of  parents,  and  both 
of  them  punished  for  having  yielded  to  fashionable  quackery.  I 
will  not  say  justly  punished ;  for  affection  for  their  children,  in 
which  respect  they  were  never  surpassed  by  any  parents  on  earth, 
was  the  cause  of  their  listening  to  the  danger-obviating  quackery. 
This,  too,  is  the  case  with  other  parents  ;  but  parents  should  be 
under  the  influence  of  reason  and  experience,  as  well  as  under  that 
of  affection  ;  and  now,  at  any  rate,  they  ought  to  set  this  really 
dangerous  quackery  at  naught. 

Such  was  Cobbett's  case  against  vaccination,  and  I 
ask,  Was  he  not  justified  in  his  opposition  ?  He  saw 
vaccination  introduced  to  the  world  as  an  infallible  pre- 
ventive of  smallpox,  and  he  lived  to  see  the  claim  gradu- 
ally minimised  until  reduced  to  that  of  making  smallpox 
milder !  Even  thus  abated,  he  had  to  stigmatise  the 
claim  as  a  last  shuffle  of  quackery.  It  is  asserted  to  this 
day,  that  vaccination  makes  smallpox  milder,  but  the 
pretence  is  exploded  whenever  we  demand,  How  do  you 
know  ?  In  any  case,  or  in  any  number  of  cases  of  small- 
pox, Who  can  define  the  severity  that  has  been  reduced 
by  vaccination  ?  any  more  than  if  I  were  to  assert  that 
vaccination  intensifies  smallpox,  it  would  be  impossible 
to  confute  me.  We  can  only  meet  unverifiable  assertion 


314  VACCINATION. 


with  indifference  or  contempt.  If  it  pleases  people  to 
believe  in  metempsychosis  or  the  constitution  of  the 
moon  in  green  cheese,  the  wise  leave  them  to  the  enjoy- 
ment of  their  humour:  On  the  other  hand,  I  have  to 
remark,  that  smallpox  is  a  disease  of  wide  range  of 
intensity,  from  an  ailment  almost  trivial  to  one  invari- 
ably fatal ;  and  this  wide  range  of  intensity  was  as  char- 
acteristic of  the  disease  before  as  since  the  introduction 
of  vaccination.  On  what  pretext  then  are  mild  cases  of 
smallpox  attributed  to  the  influence  of  vaccination  ? 
There  are  mild  and  malignant  cases  of  smallpox  alike 
among  the  vaccinated  and  unvaccinated,  and  not  unfre- 
quently  when  the  vaccinated  and  unvaccinated  are  found 
in  approximate  conditions,  as  in  the  same  household,  it  is 
the  unvaccinated  who  are  most  lightly  afflicted,  or  who 
make  the  better  recovery. 

It  often  helps  to  a  clearer  apprehension  of  a  position  if 
we  endeavour  to  conceive  its  opposite.  We  have  seen 
Cobbett  as  an  opponent  of  vaccination :  let  us  try  to 
think  of  him  as  its  advocate.  Suppose  he  had  joined 
with  the  polite  and  educated  mob  in  hailing  Jenner  as 
the  saviour  of  mankind  from  smallpox,  and  assured  the 
readers  of  the  Register  that  they  would  be  secure  from 
the  disease  for  ever  if  inoculated  with  cowpox — an  easy 
and  harmless  operation.  Then  after  a  while  imagine 
him  reporting  that  he  had  been  misled — that  the  opera- 
tion was  not  so  easy  as  represented,  nor  always  so  harm- 
less. By  and  bye  he  would  be  the  bearer  of  a  more 
serious  revelation.  Some  of  the  vaccinated,  warranted 
secure,  had  taken  smallpox,  but  such  misadventures, 
he  would  explain,  were  due  to  the  use  of  a  wrong  sort  of 
cowpox,  of  which  there  was  a  spurious  variety.  But  the 
suggestion  of  spurious  cowpox  creating  alarm  and  dis- 
couragement of  vaccination,  it  would  be  necessary  for 
him  to  counteract  the  declaration  with  the  avowal  that 
by  spurious  cowpox  was  not  meant  spurious  cowpox,  but 
simply  irregularities  in  the  action  of  the  genuine  virus 
on  the  arms  of  the  vaccinated.  But  even  these  excuses 
would  be  insufficient.  It  was  not  difficult  to  ascribe 


WILLIAM  COBBETT.  315 

smallpox  after  vaccination  to  careless  practice,  or  to 
virus  that  was  not  the  right  sort  of  cowpox ;  but  when 
smallpox  was  found  to  occur  in  numerous  instances  after 
Jenner's  own  vaccinations  and  those  of  the  most  accom- 
plished practitioners,  What  was  to  be  said  ?  Why,  what 
was  said,  that  when  vaccination  did  not  prevent  small- 
pox, it  made  it  milder  ! 

Imagine,  if  we  can,  Cobbett's  honest  and  vigorous 
intelligence  retreating  through  this  slush  of  apology  and 
prevarication !  Yet  through  such  slush  every  follower 
of  Jenner  had  to  trudge. 

I  am  not  intent  on  setting  Cobbett  forth  as  a  model  of 
wisdom.  I  simply  maintain  that  his  common-sense  was 
adequate  to  the  judgment  of  vaccination,  and  that  it  was 
correctly  exercised.  Of  physiology  and  hygiene  he  was 
as  ignorant  as  his  contemporaries ;  but  if  a  lotion  were 
sold  to  prevent  toothache,  and  it  did  not  prevent  tooth- 
ache, it  would  be  safe  to  denounce  its  vendors  as  quacks, 
even  though  the  vendors  happened  to  be  the  Royal 
College  of  Physicians  and  the  Royal  College  of  Surgeons. 
The  causes  of  disease  were  unconsidered  in  Cobbett's 
days.  It  was  not  asked  why  people  suffered  from  small- 
pox and  other  fevers,  nor  whether  fevers  were  avoid- 
able. Such  maladies  were  accepted  like  bad  weather, 
and  encountered  by  medical  dodges,  or  by  charms  like 
vaccination,  the  more  irrational  and  nasty  being  taken 
for  the  more  effective.  Cobbett  himself,  if  he  did  not 
believe  in  vaccination,  believed  in  inoculation  with  small- 
pox. He  had  his  children  poxed  in  infancy,  and  when 
he  argued  against  vaccination,  it  was  in  the  confident 
possession  of  a  surer  prophylactic.  Taking  smallpox  for 
a  probable  calamity  that  could  only  occur  once  in  a  life- 
time, it  seemed  to  him  expedient  to  incur  the  disease 
when  convenient,  and  to  have  done  with  the  dread  of  it. 
How  far  he  was  mistaken  in  this  course  I  need  not  stay  to 
debate.  Suffice  it  to  say,  that  he  thought  he  could  make 
sure  that  smallpox  was  smallpox,  whilst  what  cowpox 
might  be  none  could  tell,  especially  after  transmission 
through  arms  and  constitution  unnumbered  and  unknown. 


316  VACCINATION. 


The  causes  of  smallpox,  I  said,  were  unconsidered  in 
Cobbett's  days.  It  never  even  entered  into  Jenner's 
liead  that  the  disease  might  be  a  consequence  of  bad 
conditions  of  life ;  nor  did  he  try  to  explain  why  the 
malady  was  on  the  decrease  ere  he  appeared  with  his 
magical  prescription.  The  decrease  was  claimed  for 
vaccination,  but  it  had  set  in  before  vaccination  was 
heard  of,  and  was  continued  among  those  who  never 
received  it.  No  sanitary  improvements  had  been  effected 
to  account  for  the  abatement  of  the  disease.  To  what, 
then,  was  it  due  ?  I  answer,  in  part  at  least,  to  a  pro- 
gressive change  in  the  diet  of  the  people — to  the  sub- 
stitution of  tea  for  malt  liquors,  and  to  the  displacement 
of  arid  fare  by  potatoes.  The  food  of  city  folk  up  to  the 
close  of  last  century  was  closely  akin  to  that  of  meii  at 
sea,  and  their  scorbutic  habit  of  body  was  notorious — a 
habit  that  rendered  acute  or  chronic  whatever  disorders 
they  were  subject  to.  The  remedy  came  of  inclination 
and  necessity  rather  than  of  intention.  Tea  was  in- 
stinctively preferred  by  women,  and  the  dearness  of 
provisions  compelled  resort  to  the  potato,  easily  grown 
and  grateful  to  the  palate  as  a  mitigant  of  the  saltness 
of  beef,  bacon,  and  fish.  If  any  are  disposed  to  dispute 
the  fact  of  this  revolution  in  the  popular  dietary,  they 
may  be  referred  to  Cobbett.  He  witnessed  the  change, 
and  persistently  denounced  it.  Tea-drinking  was  to 
him  an  abomination.  It  was  a  slatternly  indulgence, 
costly  to  the  poor,  and  innutritions.  Potatoes  were  as 
detestable.  They  were  trash  as  compared  with  bread ; 
wasteful,  dirty,  and  unfit  to  satisfy  a  man's  appetite.  It 
is  true  that  tea  and  potatoes  are  poor  forms  of  food,  but 
the  one  as  a  substitute  for  beer,  and  the  other  as  an 
antiscorbutic,  were  eminently  useful.  It  is  not  said  that 
smallpox  is  caused  or  prevented  by  food,  proper  or  im- 
proper, but  that  the  character  of  food  may  predispose  to 
disease,  and  intensify  it ;  as  is  manifest  on  ship-board. 
Hence  it  is  (in  the  absence  of  other  adequate  influences) 
that  I  am  disposed  to  ascribe  the  abatement  of  smallpox 
which  set  in  toward  the  close  of  last  century  to  the 


THE  GROSVENOR,  CASE.  317 

better  blood  of  the  people  ameliorated  by  that  increased 
consumption  of  tea  and  potatoes,  against  which  Cobbett 
so  blindly  and  vainly  testified. 

A  last  word  about  Cobbett.  His  prejudices  had  nearly 
always  a  creditable  root.  He  hated  potatoes  because 
they  were  strenuously  recommended  by  Wilberforce  and 
other  good  and  goody  people  as  cheap  food  for  the  poor. 
Cobbett's  contention  was,  that  not  cheap  food,  but 
political  justice  was  the  true  remedy  for  popular  misery. 
It  was  very  nice  of  Wilberforce  and  his  friends  to  be 
kind  to  the  poor,  but,  said  Cobbett,  if  they  were  first 
just,  the  poor  might  dispense  with  their  kindness.  If 
the  poor  had  their  own,  they  might  have  beer  instead  of 
tea,  and  bread  and  beef  and  bacon  instead  of  potatoes, 
with  much  else  besides.  Cobbett  was  often  enough  in 
error,  but  behind  all  his  perversities  lay  ardent  good- will 
for  the  welfare  of  the  greatest  number  'of  his  country- 
men ;  and  the  consideration  now  enjoyed  by  the  working 
classes  is  largely  due  to  his  dauntless  spirit  and  un- 
unwearied  exertions  in  presence  of  what  appeared  at  the 
time  to  be  omnipotent  opposition. 


CHAPTER   XXIII. 

THE  GROSVENOR  CASE. 

IT  may  be  asked,  Why,  if  Vaccination  was  proved 
useless  and  injurious,  was  it  not  entirely  discontinued? 
but  the  question  implies  a  logical  consistency  which  is 
rarely  exemplified  in  human  experience.  Vaccination 
was  discontinued,  but  it  was  not  entirely  discontinued : 
it  was  chiefly  continued  among  the  upper  and  middle 
classes  where  fees  were  to  be  had  for  its  performance. 
It  was  admitted  that  the  rite  might  not  prevent  small- 
pox, but  it  would  make  it  milder.  The  last  thing  a 
medicine  man  admits  is,  that  he  is  helpless  and  can  do- 


318  VACCINATION. 


nothing.  Even  in  presence  of  that  for  which  there  is 
no  remedy,  it  tends  to  his  importance,  and  the  satisfaction 
of  the  patient,  and  those  around  the  patient,  to  make 
believe  to  do  something.  Now  for  smallpox,  there  was 
no  preventive.  Its  causes  were  unknown.  It  broke  out, 
and  it  disappeared,  none  knew  how.  Jenner's  household 
was  devastated  with  fever,  but  he  never  asked,  why  ?  As 
observed  disease  was  accepted  like  so  much  bad  weather. 
Whether  fevers  were  avoidable,  or  whether  they  were 
consequences  of  ill  living,  were  questions  as  yet  outside 
cognizance.  The  predominant  thought  about  smallpox 
was,  that  it  might  be  dodged,  be  it  from  God  or  devil. 
Inoculation  with  smallpox  was  a  dodge  with  disagreeable 
accompaniments :  inoculation  with  cowpox  was  a  dodge 
on  easier  terms :  by  a  trick,  that  left  every  evil  circum- 
stance unaffected,  smallpox  was  to  be  got  rid  of.  In  the 
nature  of  things,  the  dodge  was  ineffective — mercifully 
ineffective ;  for  who  that  is  wise  would  care  to  have  the 
consequences  of  evil  abated  save  by  the  putting  away  of 
evil  ?  The  dodge  proved  illusory  in  the  presence  of  those 
who  recommended  it,  but  whilst  a  manifest  failure  as  to 
the  main  intention,  they  had  the  craft  to  shift  its  efficacy 
to  rendering  the  disease  milder — a  claim  as  to  which  no 
test  was  immediately  available.  Moreover,  vaccination 
had  the  merit  of  action,  which  the  quack,  whether  lay  or 
professional,  insists  on  at  all  hazards.  To  confess  igno- 
rance and  inability  is  self-denial  for  which  the  quack's 
mind  is  unequal,  as  whoever  is  ailing  and  has  friends 
may  perceive.  All  come  bearing  advice  and  prescriptions 
for  the  control  of  nature,  when,  with  simple  quiescence 
and  a  right  disposition  of  circumstances,  nature  is  instant 
to  effect  recovery. 

The  failures  of  vaccination  to  prevent  smallpox  were 
chiefly  visible  among  the  poor,  smallpox  being  predom- 
inantly an  affliction  of  poverty;  but  in  1811  a  case 
occurred  in  aristocratic  life  which  produced  more  talk 
and  dismay  than  scores  of  similar  cases  among  trades-folk 
and  artizans.  Kobert  Grosvenor,  son  of  Earl  Grosvenor, 
vaccinated  by  Jenner  in  1801  when  a  puny  babe  of  a 


THE  GROSVENOR  CASE.  319 


month  old,  fell  ill  on  26th  May,  1811 ;  in  a  few  days 
smallpox  developed,  became  confluent,  and  the  lad 
narrowly  escaped  with  life.  There  was  no  mistake  about 
the  vaccination;  the  mark  on  the  boy's  arm  indicated 
"the  perfect  disease";  he  was  attended  by  Sir  Henry 
Halford  and  Sir  Walter  Farquhar,  and  was  visited  by 
Jenner,  who  happened  to  be  in  town ;  and,  in  short,  the 
evidence  of  the  impotence  of  vaccination  to  avert  small- 
pox was  complete  and  indisputable.  The  commotion  was 
intense,  and  in  a  letter  from  Jenner  to  Baron  we  see  how 
it  affected  his  mind.  He  wrote — 

COCKSPUR  STREET,  CHARING  CROSS, 

llth  June,  1811. 

MY  DEAR  FRIEND, — It  will  probably  be  my  lot  to  be  detained  in 
this  horrible  place  some  days  longer.  It  has  unfortunately 
happened,  that  a  failure  in  vaccination  has  appeared  in  the  family 
of  a  nobleman  here  ;  and,  more  unfortunately  still,  in  a  child  vac- 
cinated by  me.  The  noise  and  confusion  this  case  has  created  are 
not  to  be  described.  The  vaccine  lancet  is  sheathed ;  and  the  long 
concealed  variolous  blade  ordered  to  come  forth.  Charming ! 
This  will  soon  cure  the  mania.  The  Town  is  a  fool — an  idiot ;  and 
will  continue  in  this  red-hot — hissing-hot  state  about  this  affair, 
till  something  else  starts  up  to  draw  aside  its  attention.  I  am 
determined  to  lock  up  my  brains,  and  think  no  more  pro  bono 
publico  ;  and  I  advise  you,  my  friend,  to  do  the  same  ;  for  we  are 
sure  to  get  nothing  but  abuse  for  it.  It  is  my  intention  to  collect 
all  the  cases  I  can  of  Smallpox  after  supposed  security  from  that 
disease.  In  this  undertaking  I  hope  to  derive  much  assistance 
from  you.  The  best  plan  will  be  to  push  out  some  of  them  as  soon 
as  possible.  This  would  not  be  necessary  on  account  of  the  present 
case,  but  it  will  prove  the  best  shield  to  protect  us  from  the  past, 
and  from  those  which  are  to  come. — Ever  yours,  EDWARD  JENNER.* 

The  defence,  therefore,  was,  that  as  an  attack  of  small- 
pox did  not  always  avert  a  second  attack,  it  was  not 
reasonable  to  expect  that  vaccination  should  be  more 
effective;  and  to  make  good  this  position,  a  diligent  search 
was  instituted  for  cases  of  repeated  smallpox.  Many 
were  found,  though  they  were  generally  regarded  as 
rarities,  whilst  their  reality  was  frequently  disputed ;  but 
whatever  their  number  or  genuineness,  they  were  insig- 

*  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  ii.  p.  161. 


320  VACCINATION. 


nificant  in  comparison  with  the  instances  of  smallpox 
subsequent  to  vaccination.  Moreover,  the  Jennerites 
were  taunted  with  their  late  discovery  of  smallpox  after 
smallpox.  .Why  had  they  not  stated  from  the  outset 
that  smallpox  might  follow  vaccination  as  smallpox 
followed  smallpox  ?  Why,  on  the  contrary,  had  they 
asserted  vaccination  to  be  an  absolute  and  life-long 
defence  against  smallpox  ?  Why  had  they  abused  as 
fools  or  denounced  as  liars  all  the  early  reporters  of 
smallpox  after  vaccination?  And  why  did  it  require 
evidence,  that  could  not  possibly  be  wriggled  out  of,  to 
bring  them  to  an  acknowledgment  of  the  truth  ? 

But  even  in  presence  of  such  evidence,  Jenner  persisted 
in  his  asseverations  as  if  he  had  lost  the  very  sense  of 
truth.  Writing  to  Miss  Calcraft  on  19th  June,  1811,  he 
actually  claimed  that  he  had  foreseen  and  predicted  such 
disasters  as  had  occurred  in  the  Grosvenor  family  !  Here 
are  his  words — 

Take  a  comprehensive  view  of  Vaccination,  and  then  ask  your- 
self what  is  this  case  ?  You  will  find  it  a  speck,  a  mere  microscopic 
speck  on  the  page  which  contains  the  history  of  the  vaccine  dis- 
covery. In  the  very  first  thing  I  wrote  upon  the  subject,  and 
many  times  since,  I  have  said  the  occurrence  of  such  an  event 
should  excite  no  surprise ;  because  the  Cowpox  must  possess 
preternatural  powers  if  it  would  give  uniform  security  to  the 
constitution,  when  it  is  well  known  that  Smallpox  cannot ;  for 
we  have  more  than  one  thousand  cases  to  prove  the  contrary,  and 
fortunately  seventeen  of  them  in  the  families  of  the  nobility. 

Obviously  had  such  been  his  uniform  testimony,  the 
Grosvenor  incident  would  have  excited  neither  surprise 
nor  alarm ;  and  mark  this  additional  hardihood — 

Indeed,  I  have  often  said  it  was  wonderful  that  I  should  have 
gone  on  for  such  a  series  of  years  vaccinating  so  many  thousands r 
many  under  very  unfavourable  circumstances,  without  meeting 
with  any  interruption  to  my  success  before.  And  now  this  single 
solitary  instance  has  occurred,  all  my  past  labours  are  forgotten, 
and  I  am  held  up  by  many,  perhaps  the  majority  of  the  higher 
classes,  as  an  object  of  derision  and  contempt.  .  .  .  What  if  ten, 
fifty,  or  a  hundred  such  events  should  occur  ?  they  will  be  balanced 
a  hundred  times  over  by  those  of  a  similar  kind  after  Smallpox. 

Whilst  thus  he  maintained  that  it  was  far  more  extra- 


THE  GROSVENOK,  CASE.  321 

ordinary  that  young  Grosvenor  had  smallpox  after  vac- 
cination than  that  others  should  have  smallpox  after 
smallpox,  he  went  on  to  assert  that  vaccination  had  saved 
the  lad's  life ! 

The  child  would  have  died  (that  is  universally  allowed)  but  for 
the  previous  Vaccination.  There  was  but  little  secondary  fever ; 
the  pustules  were  sooner  in  going  off  than  in  ordinary  cases ;  and, 
indeed,  the  whole  progress  of  the  disease  was  different.  It  was 
modified  and  mitigated,  and  the  boy  was  saved.* 

Such  was  the  mot  d'  ordre.  If  Grosvenor  had  not 
been  vaccinated,  he  would  have  perished  !  The  National 
Vaccine  Board  reported  on  the  case  to  the  same  effect, 
and  the  faithful  suffered  themselves  to  be  re-assured. 

In  connection  with  1811  and  London  smallpox,  there 
is  a  letter  to  Dr.  Lettsom  which  throws  still  farther  light 
on  Jenner's  temper  and  philosophy.  He  wrote — 

CHELTENHAM,  22nd  November,  1811. 

I  have  considered  London  as  the  centre  of  opposition  to  the 
vaccine  practice  ;  but  even  there,  in  spite  of  the  base  and  murderous 
designs  of  a  few  bad  minded  individuals,  the  Smallpox  has  wonder- 
fully decreased ;  and  in  the  provinces  its  mortality  has  lessened  in 
a  still  greater  proportion.  For  the  great  and  grand  effects  of 
Vaccination  the  eye  must  quit  this  little  spot,  and  survey  it  among 
other  European  countries,  and  still  more  particularly  among  the 
vast  empires  of  Asia  and  America.  In  Mexico  and  Peru  the  disease 
is  nearly  extinct.  The  documents  which  pour  in  upon  me  from 
these  distant  regions  fill  me  with  inexpressible  delight.  You  shall 
have  copies  when  I  can  get  them  transcribed. 

The  chief  impediments  to  the  general  adoption  of  Vaccination 
in  England  are,  I  am  confident,  our  newspapers  and  some  of  our 
magazines.  "Whenever  a  case  of  what  is  called  failure  starts  up,  in 
it  goes  to  a  newspaper,  with  all  the  exaggeration  with  which  envy 
and  malice  can  garnish  it.  f 

Was  there  ever  a  more  delicious  bit  of  self-revelation ! 
The  wicked  newspapers  !  The  base,  murderous  and  bad 
minded  enemies  of  vaccination !  The  smallpox  of  London 
reduced  by  vicarious  vaccination  in  spite  of  its  ingrati- 
tude !  The  consolation  derived  from  the  survey  of  the 

*  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  ii.  p.  158. 

t  Pettigrew's  Memoirs  of  J.  C.  Lettsom,  M.D.  London,  1817.  Vol. 
iii.  p.  405. 

21 


322  VACCINATION. 


countries  of  Europe  and  the  vast  empires  of  Asia  and 
America  with  inexpressible  delight  from  Mexico  and 
Peru !  Not  Mrs.  Jellyby  herself  lost  in  an  atmosphere 
of  Borrioboola-Gah  is  more  piquant. 


CHARTER    XXIV. 

DR.   JOHN  WALKER. 

JENNER'S  references  to  the  good  effects  of  vaccination  in 
London  were  curiously  inconsistent.  That  vaccination 
in  which  he  professed  to  rejoice  was  chiefly  the  work  of 
Dr.  John  Walker,  whose  practice  he  had  denounced  as 
so  widely  at  variance  with  what  he  considered  correct, 
that  even  the  wreck  of  the  Royal  Jennerian  Society  was 
not  thought  too  heavy  a  price  to  pay  for  deliverance 
from  complicity  with  him.  The  London  Vaccine  Institu- 
tion, established  in  1806  by  Walker  and  his  friends,  was 
responsible  for  the  large  majority  of  vaccinations  effected 
in  the  metropolis.  Walker  was  a  pure  enthusiast,  of 
boundless  energy,  with  a  craze  for  vaccinating.  Adverse 
results  had  no  effect  upon  him :  he  did  not  deny,  but 
simply  did  not  recognise  them,  and  held  on  prophesying 
and  practising  with  mechanical  persistency.  Neverthe- 
less, he  ran  aground.  The  income  of  the  Institution  had 
dwindled  to  less  than  £100  a  year  when  Andrew  John- 
stone,  a  Cumberland  man,  a  school-fellow  of  Walker, 
came  to  his  assistance.  With  a  commercial  eye  he  sur- 
veyed the  situation.  He  perceived  that  though  vaccina- 
tion had  fallen  into  disrepute,  there  remained  many 
believers  who  only  required  stirring  up  and  solicitation 
to  provide  funds  to  keep  Walker  going  and  to  yield  the 
collector  a  satisfactory  commission.  As  the  Royal 
Jennerian  Society  had  ceased  to  exist  for  any  active 
purpose  in  1810,  nothing  remaining  "  but  a  Patronage, 
a  Presidency,  and  an  unorganised  body  of  Subscribers 
and  Governors,"  it  occurred  to  him  that  it  would  be  good 


DR.  JOHN  WALKER.  323 

policy  to  annex  these  to  the  revived  enterprise,  and  in  due 
course  a  union  was  effected,  and  the  LONDON  VACCINE 
INSTITUTION  AND  ROYAL  JENNERIAN  SOCIETY  became 
the  title  to  conjure  with.  An  attempt  was  made  to 
secure  Jenner  for  President,  but  that  was  too  bold  a 
stroke.  He  thus  answered  the  application — 

CHELTENHAM,  3rd  September,  1813. 

Although  it  must  be  evident  that  every  institution  which  has  for 
its  object  the  extension  of  Vaccine  Inoculation,  must  have  my  best 
wishes  for  its  success,  yet,  for  reasons  which  on  reflection  must  be 
obvious,  you  must  see  the  impossibility  of  my  accepting  the  offered 
appointment. 

Highly  impressive  were  the  Reports  of  the  recon- 
stituted Institution  under  the  patronage  of  the  Corpora- 
tion of  the  City  of  London  with  the  City  Arms  on  the 
covers.  Subsequently  the  King,  George  IV. .appeared  as 
patron,  and  the  City  Arms  gave  place  to  the  Royal 
Arms.  Among  the  presidents  were  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  four  or  five  Dukes  (one  of  them  Wellington), 
half  a  dozen  Marquises  and  as  many  Bishops,  about  a 
score  of  Earls,  with  M.P.'s  and  pious  and  philanthropic 
notables  many.  So  much  was  due  to  the  tact  of  Andrew 
Johnstone,  who  understood  the  use  of  names,  who  never 
dropped  one  of  the  least  influence,  and,  spite  of  Jenner's 
ill-will,  dealt  with  his  honours  and  countenance  as  though 
they  belonged  to  the  Institution.  Business  is  business, 
he  would  have  said,  and  holds  no  reckoning  with  pique 
and  dislike.  Nevertheless  the  financial  results  did  not 
correspond  with  the  overpowering  patronage.  The 
income  of  the  Institution  never  attained  £1000  a  year, 
whilst  the  bills  for  advertising  and  printing  sometimes 
approached  £500.  In  the  Report  for  1827  we  find  the 
operations  thus  summarised — 

Vaccinated  during  1826  by  Dr.  Walker,     -         -  4,217 
From  the  beginning,  1803,         ....  65,750 
By  appointed  Inoculators  in  London  and  en- 
virons in  1826, 16,999 

From  the  beginning, 237,119 

By  appointed  Inoculators  in  the  country  in  1826,  21,261 

From  the  beginning, 548,430 


324  VACCINATION. 


The  income  of  the  Institution  in  1826  was  £620  15s., 
and  the  expenditure  £715  12s.,  leaving  a  deficit  of 
£94  17s. 

The  figures  are  interesting,  for  they  afford  some  idea 
of  the  extent  of  London  vaccination  during  a  quarter  of 
a  century.  The  operations  of  the  Vaccine  Institution 
lay  chiefly  among  the  poor — the  vast  majority  in  London 
as  in  every  city ;  and  if  we  allow  that  in  the  course  of 
five-and-twenty  years,  350,000,  in  a  population  of  up- 
wards of  1,000,000  in  the  flux  of  life  and  death,  were 
operated  on,  we  give  a  liberal  estimate  in  favour  of 
vaccination.  That  even  so  many  could  have  much  effect 
on  the  prevalence  of  smallpox  (except  for  aggravation)  is 
incredible,  unless  the  vicarious  action  of  vaccination  be 
seriously  asserted.  Turning  over  Walker's  report  it  is 
amusing  to  observe  how  any  abatement  in  London 
smallpox  was  attributed  to  vaccination,  and  any  increase 
to  its  neglect — an  ingenuous  exemplification  of  the  fable 
of  the  Fly  and  the  Wheel. 

The  appointed  inoculators  of  the  Institution  were  a 
numerous  body  —  250  names  and  addresses  are  given 
in  one  of  the  Keports.  They  were  chiefly  London 
tradesmen  with  a  taste  for  doing  what  they  thought 
"good."  As  vaccination  came  to  be  regarded  as  pro- 
fessional work,  these  "unqualified  practitioners"  gave 
cause  for  offence,  but  Walker  held  stoutly  to  his 
opinion,  which  he  shared  with  Jenner,  that  vaccination 
might  be  performed  by  any  man  or  woman.  In 
Walker's  words,  "  It  is  easier  to  perform  the  whole 
business  of  vaccination  than  it  is  to  thread  a  needle — 
yea,  it  is  easier." 

The  annexation  of  the  remains  of  the  Royal  Jennerian 
Society  by  Walker  was  much  disliked  by  Jenner  and 
his  associates ;  and  when  the  revived  enterprise  showed 
signs  of  prosperity,  their  dislike  developed  to  open 
enmity,  and  John  Ring's  services  as  bravo  and  satirist 
were  called  into  requisition.  He  first  tried  his  hand, 
anonymously,  in  a  volume  of  doggerel,  published  in  1815, 


DK  JOHN  WALKER.  325 

entitled  The  Vaccine  Scourge*  in  which  Walker  is  re- 
presented as  singing — 

I  am  a  jolly  beggar, 

From  Cockermouth  I  came  ; 
I  do  pretend  to  be  a  Friend, 

John  Walker  is  my  name  ; 
And  a-begging  we  will  go,  will  go,  will  go, 
And  a-begging  we  will  go. 

The  verses,  extending  over  a  hundred  pages,  are  wretched 
stuff,  vulgar  and  malevolent,  and  a  few  extracts  from 
the  Preface  will  indicate  the  animus  of  the  entire  per- 
formance. Ring's  assumption  was,  first,  that  Walker 
was  a  rogue  from  whom  the  public  required  to  be  pro- 
tected ;  second,  that  his  Institution  was  superfluous ;  and 
third,  that  if  greater  facilities  for  vaccination  were 
wanted  in  London,  it  should  be  left  to  the  Government 
to  provide  them — 

These  hints  may  serve  to  warn  the  public.  Dr.  Walker  is  an 
artful,  avaricious,  and  ambitious  man ;  but  let  him  be  cautious 
how  he  acts  when  he  tries  to  exercise  his  art,  to  glut  his  avarice, 
and  to  gratify  his  ambition.  Let  him  recollect  what  was  inscribed 
on  the  tombstone  of  an  infamous  scoundrel — 

"  Lie  still  if  you're  wise  ; 
You'll  be  damned  if  you  rise." 

We  recommend  him  and  his  accomplices  not  to  try  to  obtain 
money  by  false  pretences.  A  Vaccine  Institution  has  long  been 
established  by  the  Legislature,  where,  as  well  as  at  other  Institu- 
tions, matter  may  be  procured  free  of  expense  ;  and  no  one  who  has 
much  zeal  in  the  cause  of  Vaccination  will  find  much  difficulty  in 
procuring  it.  If  farther  aid  is  necessary,  let  it  be  granted  by 
Parliament,  and  not  to  a  set  of  swindlers.  It  is  not  meet  to  take 
the  children's  bread  and  throw  it  to  the  dogs. 

Many  of  the  agents  of  the  London  Vaccine  Institution 
were  chemists  and  apothecaries,  and  these,  according  to 
Ring,  had  an  interest  in  the  propagation  of  smallpox — 

To  exterminate  Smallpox  by  means  of  chemists  and  apothe- 
caries, the  greatest  friends  of  Smallpox,  is  to  cast  out  devils  by 

*  The  Vaccine  Scourge  containing  the  New  Beggar's  Opera  alias  the 
Walkerian  Farce,  alias  the  London  Vaccine  Hoax;  in  answer  to  Dr. 
Walker's  Jenneric  Opera.  A  Rod  for  the  Fool's  Back.  London,  1815. 
Pp.  122.  Price  3s. 


326  VACCINATION. 


Beelzebub,  the  prince  of  the  devils.  You  might  as  well  expect  a 
foxhunter  to  destroy  the  breed  of  foxes,  or  a  ratcatcher  to  exter^ 
minate  the  race  of  rats. 

The  Vaccine  Scourge  producing  little  effect,  Eing  re- 
turned to  the  charge  in  the  following  year,  1816,  with  A 
Caution  against  Vaccine  Swindlers  and  Impostors* 
The  Caution  is  a  series  of  libels,  the  puerility  and  extra- 
vagance of  which  were  their  own  nullification.  A  motto 
was  taken  from  the  New  Monthly  Magazine  for  the  title- 
page,  as  follows — 

The  Jennerian  discovery  has  shed  a  brilliant  lustre  on  our  era ; 
but  unfortunately,  the  discovery  has  been  in  a  great  degree  rendered 
abortive  by  bastard  institutions,  created  for  the  purpose  of  filling 
the  pockets  of  a  set  of  adventurers,  without  education,  and  desti- 
tute of  principle.  We  could  name  several  wretches  who  have 
fattened,  and  are  still  fattening,  on  such  jobs. 

Ring  delivered  his  mind  unequivocally.  Walker  was 
an  imposter,  and  the  London  Vaccine  Institution  pros- 
pered by  his  frauds — 

There  is  a  Society  in  this  Metropolis  [he  wrote] ,  falsely  calling 
itself  the  Royal  Jennerian  Society,  which  has  been  collecting 
subscriptions  to  a  considerable  amount  under  that  assumed  name ; 
and  thus  collecting  money  under  false  pretences. 

An  eminent  physician  speaking  of  this  Society  and  its  successful 
state,  called  it  a  successful  villany;  and  villany  is  not  the  less 
villany  because  it  is  successful. 

It  has  also  been  organising  a  complete  system  of  quackery,  by 
granting  diplomas  to  persons  totally  ignorant  of  the  first  principles 
of  the  medical  profession,  which  will  add  to  the  present  host  of 
empirics. 

No  one  can  now  pass  along  the  streets  without  being  annoyed 
with  the  inscription,  VACCINATION  GRATIS  UNDER  THE  SANCTION  OF 
THE  LONDON  VACCINE  INSTITUTION  in  one  pane  of  glass,  MACASSAR 
OIL  in  a  second,  and  PATENT  BLACKING  in  a  third.  In  short 
Vaccination  is  now  quite  a  drug, 

These  were  words  of  envy  and  malice,  and  came  with 
odious  inconsistency  from  the  spokesman  of  Jenner,  who 
had  instructed  and  encouraged  his  acquaintances,  male 


*  A  Caution  against  Vaccine  Swindlers  and  Imposters.     By  John  Ring. 
London,  1816.     Pp.  140. 


DR.  JOHN  WALKER.  327 

and  female,  to  practise  vaccination.  We  may,  how- 
ever, take  Ring's  evidence  as  to  Walker's  activity  in 
London — 

Dr.  Walker  glories  in  his  chemical,  galenical,  pharmaceutical, 
and  dentrifical  inoculators ;  and  boasts  that  they  exceed  in  number 
those  of  any  other  vaccine  institution  ;  but  he  glories  in  his  shame. 
Non  numerentur,  sed  ponderentur.  They  are  springing  up  under 
every  pestle  and  mortar,  and  barber's  pole,  like  mushrooms  in  a 
hot-bed,  from  Hyde-Park  Corner  to  Whitechapel,  and  from  White- 
chapel  to  Blackwall.  It  is  the  duty  of  every  regular  practitioner 
to  expose  such  imposters,  and  to  encourage  such  exposure.  It  is, 
in  fact,  the  rescuing  of  life  from  fraudulent  and  rapacious  hands. 

One  of  his  inoculators  is  Mr.  Campbell,  who  cures  all  sorts  of 
incurable  diseases  with  Elephants'  Milk.  He  says  he  recently 
sent  20,000  bottles  to  Russia  at  11s.  each.  He  also  sells  the  Milk 
in  pills  at  2s.  9d.  a  box.  The  poor  have  the  Milk  at  half-price ; 
and  strict  secresy  is  preserved. 

In  Walker's  Plan  for  1814,  it  appears  that  he  grants  his  diplomas 
to  those  who  are  not,  as  well  as  to  those  who  are,  of  the  medical 
profession,  and  that"  Inoculators  in  the  country  are  requested  and 
authorised  to  put  up  a  board  with  the  following  inscription, 
PKOTECTION  FROM  SMALLPOX  UNDER  THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LONDON 
VACCINE  INSTITUTION.  Then  is  to  follow  the  name  of  the  farrier, 
cobbler,  barber,  barber-surgeon,  apothecary,  man-midwife,  tooth- 
drawer,  druggist,  chemist,  oil-man,  cheesemonger,  drysalter,  or 
grocer,  who  dispenses  the  blessing  of  Vaccination  gratuitously. 

The  motley  crew  thus  appointed  are  directed  to  make  an  Annual 
Return  of  the  numbers  inoculated  by  them  in  order  to  swell  Dr. 
Walker's  list ;  and  such  inoculators  are  not  in  general  very  nice 
in  their  calculations.  Many  of  them  will,  in  all  probability,  like 
other  quacks,  pretend  to  a  hundred  times  more  than  they  really 
perform. 

Those  who  continued  to  believe  that  Vaccination  was  an 
easy  and  harmless  operation,  could  see  nothing  but  good 
management  in  the  multiplication  of  Walker's  agencies, 
nor  anything  but  meanness  in  Ring's  sneers  at  tradesmen. 
His  assertion  that  the  use  of  the  title  of  the  Royal 
Jennerian  Society  was  fraudulent,  had  no  justification, 
yet  it  was  his  persistent  reproach — 

Honesty  is  the  best  policy.  I  therefore  sincerely  advise  Dr. 
Walker  and  his  Board,  to  assume  no  more  the  title  of  the  Royal 
Jennerian  Society,  to  which  they  must  know  they  have  not  the 
least  claim,  lest  they  should  be  brought  before  the  Lord  Mayor  as 
swindlers,  and  be  prosecuted  for  obtaining  money  under  false 


328  VACCINATION. 


pretences.  I  am  informed  that  they  have  already  been  compelled 
to  refund  a  legacy  of  .£100  ;  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  they  will  be  com- 
pelled to  refund  the  rest  of  their  ill-gotten  store. 

Lastly,  he  appealed  to  the  members  of  the  Jennerian 
Society,  demanding — 

How  long  will  they  suffer  their  names  to  be  prostituted,  and  the 
public  to  be  deluded  by  a  set  of  swindlers  and  imposters  ;  by  men 
who  are  neither  dignified  by  their  rank,  nor  distinguished  by  their 
talents ;  by  a  set  of  daring  adventurers  and  despicable  upstarts ! 
It  is  a  gross  insult  and  indignity,  to  which  no  man  of  the  least 
sense  of  honour,  or  of  shame,  would  submit. 

But  they  did  submit,  and  why  not  ?  Enthusiasm  for 
Vaccination  had  passed  away.  It  had  been  found  out ; 
it  was  everywhere  distrusted ;  and  those  who  held  by  it 
had  to  see  it  pushed  on  the  same  terms  as  any  other 
quack  prescription.  What  then  was  there  to  object  to  in 
Walker's  procedure  ?  The  reason  for  King's  libels  lay  in 
Jenner's  jealousy.  Walker  was  Jenner's  abhorrence. 
He  had  joined  in  the  conspiracy  to  oust  Walker  from  the 
Jennerian  Society  in  1806,  but  the  operation  proved 
fatal  to  the  Society,  whilst  Walker  conveyed  the  confi- 
dence and  subscriptions  of  the  faithful  to  his  new  Insti- 
tution. What  wonder,  then,  that  Jenner  disliked  the 
eccentric  Quaker!  Even  worse;  Walker  accurately 
appraised  Jenner's  share  in  "the  vaccine  discovery," 
which  came,  he  said,  from  Jenner  as  a  hint,  and  was 
developed  by  Pearson  and  Woodville  in  practice — a  fact 
that  was  as  gall  and  wormwood  to  Jenner.  Moreover, 
Walker  had  written  a  Jenneric  Opera  in  which  Jenner 
was  represented  as  a  country  apothecary  riding  up  to 
London  on  a  cow,  and  going  round  a-begging  among  the 
nobility  and  gentry.  Wherefore  says  Eing — 

As  to  the  calumny  and  detraction  which  Dr.  Jenner  and  his 
friends  have  received  at  the  hands  of  that  desperate  adventurer  in 
his  Jenneric  Opera  and  elsewhere,  they  are  content  to  bear  it,  pro- 
vided he  will  not  again  use  the  language  of  flattery  toward  them ; 
nor  lavish  his  encomiums  on  them  in  that  polluted  channel,  the 
Medical  Journal.  His  resentment  can  do  very  little  harm,  which 
is  more  than  can  be  said  of  his  adulation. 

"  It  is  the  slaver  kills,  and  not  the  bite  ! " 


DR.  JOHN  WALKER.  329 

Ring  was  an  awkward  champion.  He  sneered  at 
Walker's  diplomas  certifying  fitness  to  act  as  vaccin- 
ator — 

They  will  have  the  same  authority  [he  said]  and  the  same 
virtue  as  a  diploma  from  the  University  of  St.  Andrews ;  and  in 
all  probability  will  in  a  short  time  be  sold  at  the  same  price — 

Forgetful  that  it  was  from  St.  Andrews  that  Jenner  pur- 
chased his  M.D. ! 

With  equal  recklessness,  he  denounced  Walker  as  a 
vaccinator,  saying — 

He  tells  the  public  in  his  Address  that  "  Vaccination  will  shed 
consolation  into  the  bosom  of  every  family;"  but  alas!  I  have 
known  many  a  family  that  has  had  reason  to  rue  the  day  in  which 
they  believed  him,  when  he  told  them  this  nattering  tale.  .  .  . 
It  is  very  necessary  that  his  followers  pray  that  the  Lord  have 
mercy  on  them,  if  they  have  no  other  director  than  Dr.  Walker. 

Concerning  the  consequences  of  Walker's  operations, 
Ring,  no  doubt,  testified  truly.  Many  continue  to  rue 
the  day  when  they  listen  to  the  flattering  tale  of  the 
vaccinator.  But  the  testimony  came  strangely  from  a 
Jennerite,  who  was  ready  to  swear  that  any  abatement 
of  smallpox  in  London  was  due  to  the  vaccinations 
effected  in  great  part  by  "that  desperate  adventurer," 
Walker ! 

Ring  was  implacable,  the  more  so,  perhaps,  as  Walker 
and  his  friends  were  apparently  indifferent  to  his  abuse. 
He  burst  forth  afresh  in  the  London  Medical  Repository 
for  1821,  where  among  much  else  we  find  the  following — 

HANOVER  STREET,  llth  October,  1821. 

The  mock  Royal  Jennerian  Society  is  extending  its  impositions 
and  depredations.  The  emissaries  of  this  bastard  institution,  as 
well  as  the  principals,  should  suffer  transportation  if  there  be  any 
public  spirit  among  us. 

I  beg  leave  to  add  that  the  present  Society  is  disclaimed  by  Dr. 
Jenner,  who  cautioned  the  Emperor  of  Russia  against  it  when  his 
Majesty  was  in  London  in  1814. 

In  my  Caution  against  Vaccine  Swindlers  and  Imposters, 
published  in  1816,  I  related  several  instances  of  the  ill  effects  of 
Dr.  Walker's  practice,  and  some  in  which  it  had  proved  fatal.  It 
was  partly  for  his  mal-practice,  and  partly  for  his  mis-conduct, 


330  VACCINATION. 


that  he  was  about  to  be  expelled  from  the  Eoyal  Jennerian  Society; 
and,  after  his  artful  and  wicked  stratagems,  was  permitted  to  resign ; 
yet  now  he  has  the  arrogance  to  call  himself  Director  of  that 
Society,  and  to  issue  his  venal  diplomas  in  its  name.  If  Dr. 
Walker  must  imitate  the  universities  of  St.  Andrews  and  Aberdeen, 
let  him  at  least  have  like  them  some  certificate  of  qualification. 
If  he  is  determined  to  grow  rich  by  degrees,  let  him  also  endeavour 
to  grow  wise  and  honest. 

The  diplomas  which  thus  moved  Ring's  wrath  were 
imposing  documents,  certifying  that  the  holder  was 
authorised  to  vaccinate,  intended  to  be  framed  and  ex- 
hibited in  the  shop  or  parlour.  There  was  a  picture  of 
something  like  an  arch  of  Waterloo  Bridge  with  London 
in  the  background  and  the  Royal  Arms  overhead;  Jenner 
standing  on  a  pier  with  a  dead  serpent  hanging  in  limp 
folds  over  his  arm,  with  the  inscription,  Per  omnia  littora 
vincitur  variola;  a  woman  milking  a  cow  with  a  group 
of  children  around  her,  drinking  milk  out  of  porringers,  as 
if  milk  were  cowpox ;  whilst  the  bed  of  the  Thames  was 
blocked  with  the  names  of  the  great  and  good  who  had 
testified  in  favour  of  vaccination — an  allegorical  style 
of  representation  then  much  in  vogue  and  considered 
impressive. 

In  order  to  create  prejudice,  Ring  had  much  to  say  of 
Walker's  religious  and  political  principles.  He  was  a 
Quaker  of  the  Thomas  Paine  pattern,  and  like  Paine  had 
associated  with  the  French  revolutionists ;  but  whilst 
dressing  as  a  Friend,  and  associating  with  Friends,  he 
was  too  unconformable  a  personality  for  their  Society, 
and  was  never  received  into  membership.  Ring's  impu- 
tations of  rapacity  and  avarice  were  grossly  absurd  as 
applied  to  Walker.  He  cared  for  nothing  beyond  support 
in  his  work  as  vaccinator.  It  was  said  he  would  take  a 
£5  note,  fold  it,  stick  a  pin  through  it,  write  an  address 
on  the  back,  and  post  it.  He  would  rarely  vaccinate  the 
well-to-do.  If  they  came  to  his  office,  he  would  ask, 
"  Who  is  thy  medical  attendant  ?"  and  wrapping  up  some 
fresh  matter  on  glasses  would  say,  "  Take  this  with  my 
compliments  to  thy  medical  attendant,  and  he  will  do 
what  is  requisite  quite  as  well  as  myself."  When  he  did 


DR.  JOHN  WALKER.  331 


call  at  a  house  to  vaccinate,  he  never  asked  for  a  fee,  and 
his  biographer,  Dr.  Epps,*  observes  that  he  was  only 
known  on  one  occasion  to  express  a  wish  for  remunera- 
tion. Meeting  a  merchant  in  St.  Paul's  Churchyard,  whose 
household  he  had  vaccinated  at  some  inconvenience,  he 
observed,  "  Friend,  if  thou  has  sent  by  thy  servant  a  draft 
for  my  services  to  thy  family,  he  has  either  robbed  me  or 
deceived  thee."  When  money  was  brought  to  him,  he 
usually  called  his  wife  to  receive  it,  she  having  the  un- 
divided care  of  all  that  pertained  to  him  apart  from 
vaccination.  Of  this  good  woman,  Annie,  he  was  in  the 
habit  of  speaking  with  an  admiration  and  unreserve  that 
constituted  one  of  his  numerous  oddities.  For  example, 
when  Dr.  Moore  in  his  History  of  Vaccination  observed 
somewhat  maliciously — 

John  "Walker,  it  is  said,  procured  a  medical  diploma  from  the 
indulgent  University  of  Leyden ;  and  more  excellent  work  than 
Walker's  has  rarely  been  performed  by  a  humbler  instrument — 

Walker  good-humouredly  replied,  that  Moore  as  a  Glas- 
gow man  naturally  preferred  his  own  University  to  that 
of  Leyden,  but  he  too  had  cause  to  love  Glasgow— 

"  Glasgow  is  a  bonnie  town,  and  there  are  bonnie  lasses  in  it." 

There  is  not  any  other  spot  on  the  surface  of  the  globe  where  I 
have  experienced  a  happiness  so  complete  as  I  obtained  in  it  in 
1799.  Let  any  bachelor  who  cannot  divine  what  this  assertion 
may  mean,  be  informed,  that  it  was  then  and  there  I  entered  into 
marriage  ;  and  the  covenant  was  ratified  in  the  office  of  the  Clerk 
of  the  Peace  for  the  county  of  Lanarkshire. f 

Walker  was  obstinate,  but  not  vindictive.  Dr.  James 
Sims  offered  him  £1000  in  1806  to  prosecute  his  adver- 
saries for  conspiracy,  but  he  left  them  to  their  devices, 
and  proved  his  quality  by  outworking  and  superseding 
them.  He  replied  to  Moore's  flippant  version  of  the 
causes  that  led  to  the  division  and  destruction  of  the 


*  The  Life  of  John  Walker,  M.D.,  Graduate  of  the  University  of  Ley- 
den ;  Licentiate  of  the  Royal  College  of  Physicians  of  London ;  and  late 
Director  of  the  Royal  Jennerian  and  London  Vaccine  Institutions.  By 
John  Epps,  M.D.,  London,  1831.  Pp.  342. 

t  John  Walker's  Reply  to  James  Moore.     London,  1818.     Pp.  16. 


332  VACCINATION. 


Royal  Jennerian  Society  with  perfect  self-control  and 
manifest  truthfulness,  but  at  the  same  time  with  a  sim- 
plicity not  of  this  world.*  Jenner's  spite,  Ring's  abuse, 
and  the  sneers  of  the  superfine  did  him  little  harm ;  and, 
if  vaccination  were  beneficial,  I  should  have  nothing  but 
praise  for  the  good  people,  who,  recognising  the  sincerity 
•of  his  work,  disregarded  trivialities  of  manner,  and  sup- 
ported him  loyally  as  a  faithful  servant. 

Walker  was  nothing  but  a  vaccinator.  Day  after  day, 
in  rain  or  sunshine,  his  lank  figure,  and  self-complacent 
visage  under  a  white  broad-brimmed  hat  were  to  be  seen 
making  the  round  of  the  vaccine  stations.  When  he 
entered  a  room,  he  first  glanced  at  the  table  on  which  he 
expected  to  find  his  books.  If  any  mothers  had  placed 
their  children's  bonnets  or  garments  thereon,  they  were 
at  once  swept  off.  He  then  ranged  the  company  in  order 
against  the  wall  like  a  schoolmaster,  and  delivered  a 
short  address  on  the  protection  he  was  about  to  confer. 
The  children's  names  were  taken  down  with  a  prelimin- 
ary caution  to  speak  distinctly.  When  women  muttered 
or  gabbled,  the  Doctor  grew  irritable,  and  would  some- 
times make  a  troublesome  woman  spell  her  infant's  name 
half-a-dozen  times,  adding,  "  Now  thou  wilt  know  how 
to  speak  plainly."  Having  got  the  names,  he  had  next 
to  look  out  for  virus.  The  few  mothers  who  had  ven- 
tured to  return  with  their  vaccinated  babes  for  examina- 
tion, would  perhaps  lose  courage  and  attempt  to  escape, 
when  Walker  would  dart  to  the  door  and  arrest  the 
fugitive,  saying,  "  Thou  foolish  woman !  If  thou  wilt 
not  do  good  to  others,  I  will  bless  thy  little  one,"  and 
would  proceed  to  gather  what  he  called  his  "Vaccine 
Roses."  He  pursued  his  operations  calmly  indifferent  to 
the  screams  of  the  children  and  the  complaints  of  the 
mothers,  and  as  he  disposed  of  each  case  pronounced  the 
illusory  benediction,  "  Thy  child  is  safe  :  fear  not :  fare 
thee  well." 

*  John  Walker's  Reply  to  James  Moore  on  his  Mis- Statements  respect- 
ing the  Vaccine  Establishments  in  the  Metropolis  and  their  Officers  and 
Servants  both  Living  and  Dead.  London,  1818.  Pp.  114. 


TENNER'S  LATER  WRITINGS.  33$ 

Walker  died  in  1830,  aged  seventy-one,  after  a  short 
illness,  in  which  "he  refused  to  take  any  medicine  though 
himself  a  physician."  In  the  Report  of  the  London  Vac- 
cine Institution  for  1831  we  read — 

He  was  a  man  who  day  after  day,  month  after  month,  and  year 
after  year,  watched  with  the  care  of  a  parent  the  cause  of  which  he 
was  so  experienced  an  advocate  ;  who  was  willing  to  know  nothing 
but  the  object  of  his  early  love,  Vaccination ;  who  for  upwards  of  a 
quarter  of  a  century  never  omitted  one  lawful  day  going  his  rounds 
to  the  numerous  stations  of  the  Institution ;  and  who,  it  may  be 
almost  said,  ended  his  life  with  the  lancet  in  his  hand,  for  he  went 
round  to  the  stations  two  days  before  he  died. 

Toward  the  end  of  his  life,  he  used  to  boast  that  he 
had  performed  upwards  of  one  hundred  thousand  vac- 
cinations. So  far  as  vaccination  prevailed  in  London,  it 
was  chiefly  through  Walker's  exertions ;  and  he  was  just 
the  character,  being  set  going,  to  keep  going  whatever 
the  adverse  evidence  or  obloquy.  He  had  his  plans  and 
his  methods,  and  those  who  tried  to  modify  them  took 
nothing  by  their  pains.  He  was  a  man  to  have  his  own 
way,  and  those  who  did  not  like  him  might  leave  him. 
Whether  from  incapacity  or  affectation,  he  made  no 
attempt  at  politeness,  and  said  precisely  what  he  thought 
without  accommodation.  He  was  a  piece  of  mechanism 
rather  than  of  genial  humanity. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

JENNER'S  LATER  WRITINGS. 

JENNER'S  later  writings  were  chiefly  apologies  for  the 
failures  of  vaccination.  His  position  was  one  of  much 
difficulty,  and  its  peculiarity  is  rarely,  if  ever,  recognised. 
For  example,  how  few  know  that  his  Inquiry  published 
in  1798,  "that  master-piece  of  medical  induction,"  ac- 
cording to  Mr.  John  Simon,  was  kept  out  of  print  and 
referred  to  as  rarely  as  possible  after  1801-2. 
"Why?" 


334  VACCINATION. 


The  answer  to  the  question  is  so  important  that  at  the 
risk  of  repetition  I  give  it  explicitly. 

The  Inquiry  was  suppressed  because  of  its  ascription 
of  cowpox  to  horsegrease. 

It  was  the  belief  of  dairy-maids  in  Gloucestershire 
that  to  have  had  cowpox  was  to  be  secure  from  smallpox. 
Jenner  was  much  impressed  by  the  rustic  superstition, 
and  brought  it  so  persistently  before  his  medical  brethren 
at  their  convivial  assemblies,  that  they  threatened  to 
expel  him  if  he  bored  them  any  longer  with  the  subject. 
"  It  is  true,"  they  said,  "  that  the  maids  believe  an  attack 
of  cowpox  keeps  off  smallpox,  but  we  know  they  are 
wrong ;  for  we  are  all  familiar  with  cases  of  smallpox 
after  cowpox." 

Thus  frustrated,  Jenner's  ingenuity  took  another  turn. 
It  was  the  belief  of  farriers  that  if  infected  in  dressing 
horses'  greasy  heels,  they  too  were  secure  from  smallpox. 
The  area  of  this  conviction  was  narrower  than  that  of 
the  dairy-maids,  farriers  being  neither  so  numerous,  nor 
so  observant  of  their  beauty  :  but  Jenner  entertained 
their  faith  and  converted  it  to  his  purpose. 

Horsegrease  protected  from  smallpox,  if  cowpox  did 
not.  But  might  there  not  be  one  sort  of  cowpox  that 
answered  to  the  dairy-maids'  faith,  if  another  sort  did 
not  ?  Happy  thought !  The  defensive  sort  was  derived 
from  the  horsegrease  which  protected  the  farriers :  the 
non-defensive  originated  spontaneously  on  the  cows. 
Men,  fresh  from  handling  horses'  greasy  heels,  milked 
cows  and  communicated  to  them  the  horses'  disease. 
Milkmaids,  who  in  turn  contracted  from  the  cows  that 
sort  of  pox,  were  like  the  farriers  secure  from  smallpox, 
yea  securer ;  whilst  milkmaids  who  contracted  pox  spon- 
taneously developed  on  cows  were  not  secure.  The 
milkmaids'  superstition  was  therefore  justifiable :  they 
were  right  and  they  were  wrong — right  when  they  got 
pox  through  the  cow  from  the  horse ;  wrong  when  they 
got  pox  from  the  cow  simply. 

Why  then,  it  may  be  asked,  did  not  Jenner  dismiss 
the  cow  from  consideration  ?  Why  did  he  not  base  his 


JENNER'S  LATER  WRITINGS.  335 

prescription  on  the  farriers'  experience,  and  use  and  re- 
commend horsegrease  exclusively  for  inoculation  ?  The 
question  is  an  obvious  one,  but  it  is  not  easy  to  make 
out  Jenner's  answer  with  precision.  His  assertion  was, 
that — 

The  virus  from  the  horse  is  not  to  be  relied  upon  as  rendering 
the  system  secure  from  variolous  infection,  but  the  matter  produced 
by  it  on  the  nipple  of  the  cow  is  perfectly  so — 

which  was  to  say  that  horsegrease  attained  its  highest 
prophylaxy  after  transmission  through  the  cow. 

Such  was  the  doctrine  of  the  Inquiry,  "  that  master- 
piece of  medical  induction." 

When  the  doctrine  came  to  be  reduced  to  practice, 
difficulties  arose.  Cowpox  was  considered  wholesome 
and  credible,  whilst  horsegrease  was  repulsive  and  in- 
credible. Still  fact  was  fact ;  and  many  were  ready  to 
accept  horsegrease  through  the  cow,  or  without  the  cow, 
if  such  indeed  were  the  source  of  the  new  salvation. 
Cowpox  proved  to  be  a  rare  commodity,  whilst  horse- 
grease  was  common,  and  numerous  attempts  were  made 
to  produce  cowpox  by  means  of  grease,  but  ineffectually. 
At  some  attempts,  Jenner  officiated.  Marshall  records 
that— 

Mr.  Sewell,  Assistant  Professor  at  the  Royal  Veterinary  College, 
informs  me  that  he  was  a  witness  to  a  series  of  experiments,  twice 
repeated,  at  the  College  in  the  presence  of  Dr.  Jenner,  Dr.  Wood- 
ville,  Mr.  Wachsel,  and  Mr.  Turner,  with  a  view  to  produce  the 
vaccine  disease  on  the  teats  of  a  cow.  The  matter  of  grease  had 
been  immediately  taken  from  the  horse,  and  variously  applied  by 
long  continued  friction,  punctures,  scarifications,  and  by  scratching 
the  surface  with  a  needle  ;  but  from  these  trials  neither  inflamma- 
tion, nor  any  affection  resembling  a  pock  resulted.* 

To  this  discomfiture  Jenner  had  to  submit.  His  ascrip- 
tion of  cowpox  to  horsegrease  was  stigmatised  as  an  error 
of  which  the  less  that  was  said  the  better.  It  is  true 
that  other  experimenters  were  more  successful,  and  that 


*  A  Popular  Summary  of  Vaccination  with  reference  to  its  Efficacy  and 
Probable  Cause  of  Failure.  By  John  Marshall,  M.R.C.S.  and  District 
Vaccinator  of  the  National  Vaccine  Establishment.  London,  1830.  Pp.96. 


336  VACCINATION. 


Loy  of  Whitby  and  Sacco  of  Milan  dispensed  with  the 
cow  as  a  superfluity  and  used  matter  direct  from  the 
horse  for  inoculation,  passing  the  virus  from  arm  to  arm 
into  general  circulation  until  what  was  equine  was  lost 
sight  of  and  indistinguishable  from  what  was  vaccine ; 
but  Jenner  did  not  care  to  be  justified  at  the  risk  of  his 
popularity  and  the  money  on  which  he  had  set  his  heart. 
He  saw  how  the  wind  of  public  favour  was  blowing,  and 
went  with  it.  Since  horsegrease  was  disliked,  he  con- 
sented to  its  oblivion.  Pearson,  the  chief  promoter  and 
organiser  of  vaccination,  scoffed  at  horsegrease,  and  used 
spontaneous  cowpox,  which  Jenner  knew  was  of  no  avail 
against  smallpox ;  but  he  entered  no  protest  upon  that 
score.  On  the  contrary,  he  let  the  futile  practice  go  on ; 
he  claimed  it  as  his  own ;  and  he  set  about  manufactur- 
ing excuses  for  the  failures  which  were  imminent. 

Spurious  cowpox  was  one  of  the  most  dexterous  of 
these  excuses.  If  injury  or  smallpox  followed  vac- 
cination, the  disaster  was  ascribed  to  spurious  cowpox. 
Jenner's  Further  Observations,  published  in  1799,  was 
designed  to  teach  "  how  to  distinguish  with  accuracy 
between  that  peculiar  pustule  which  is  the  true  Cow 
Pock  and  that  which  is  spurious;"  and  in  his  Origin  of 
the  Vaccine  Inoculation  in  1801  even  greater  stress  was 
laid  on  the  distinction.  By  and  bye,  however,  the  excuse 
worked  more  harm  than  advantage.  People  got  terrified 
with  the  mischiefs  ascribed  to  spurious  cowpox,  and  as 
which  was  genuine  and  which  spurious  was  only  dis- 
coverable in  their  consequences,  they  began  to  decline  to 
have  either.  It  then  became  expedient  to  deny  spurious 
cowpox,  which  Jenner  did.  He  confessed  to  the  Royal 
College  of  Physicians  that  there  was  not  a  true  and  a 
false  cowpox ;  and  that  by  spurious  cowpox  he  "  meant 
nothing  more  than  to  express  irregularity  in  the  form 
and  progress  of  the  vaccine  pustule  from  which  its 
efficacy  is  inferred." 

In  view  of  facts  like  these,  there  is  little  cause  for  sur- 
prise that  the  publication  of  Jenner's  Inquiry  with  its 
two  supplements  was  not  continued.  What  he  set  forth 


JENNER'S  LATER  WRITINGS.  337 

as  essential  was  treated  as  illusory,  whilst  the  cowpox  in 
which  he  had  taught  there  was  no  security  had  been 
brought  into  use  everywhere.  Why  therefore  embarrass 
himself  with  proclamations  of  his  own  blunders  ?  The 
believers  in  vaccination  were  good-natured  and  incurious, 
and  he  had  their  homage,  which  was  agreeable  and 
profitable,  and  why  should  he  dissipate  it  ?  The  Inquiry 
was  printed  for  the  third  time  in  1801,  but "  this  master- 
piece of  medical  induction  "  has  never  been  republished ; 
and  the  probability  is,  that  if  ever  reproduced,  it  will  be 
to  prove  to  the  world  the  emptiness  of  its  author's  pre- 
tensions. 

Jenner's  original  promises  of  immunity  from  smallpox 
by  inoculation  with  horsegrease  cowpox  were  absolute. 
Thus  he  wrote — 

The  person  who  has  been  affected  with  Cowpox  Virus  is  for  ever 
after  secure  from  the  infection  of  the  Smallpox.* 

It  clearly  appears  that  this  disease,  Cowpox,  leaves  the  consti- 
tution in  a  state  of  perfect  security  from  the  infection  of  the  Small- 
pox, f 

Cowpox  admits  of  being  inoculated  on  the  human  frame  with  the 
most  perfect  ease  and  safety,  and  is  attended  with  the  singularly 
beneficial  effect  of  rendering  through  life  the  person  so  inoculated 
perfectly  secure  from  the  infection  of  the  Smallpox.  J 

Experience  was  not  slow  to  demonstrate  the  futility 
of  these  assurances.  At  first  the  facts  were  flatly  denied  : 
it  was  impossible  for  smallpox  to  succeed  cowpox.  The 
evidence,  however,  grew  too  strong  to  be  outsworn,  and 
then  it  was  said  the  cowpox  must  have  been  spurious. 
As  failures  accumulated  over  the  operations  of  Jenner 
himself  and  his  choice  disciples  (who  were  naturally  pre- 
sumed to  know  and  avoid  spurious  cowpox)  they  began 
to  lay  great  stress  on  the  fact  that  smallpox  itself  did 
not  always  avert  a  subsequent  attack ;  and  if  smallpox 
did  not  save  from  smallpox,  why,  they  demanded,  should 
cowpox  be  expected  to  do  more  ?§  Why,  indeed  !  Still 

*  Inquiry,  1798,  p.  7.  t  Ibid.,  p.  58. 

I  Petition  to  the  House  of  Commons,  1802. 

§  Jenner  to  Dunning,  23rd  Dec.,  1804.  JBaron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol. 
ii.  p.  26. 

99 


338  VACCINATION. 


the  cases  of  smallpox  after  cowpox  were  as  scores  to  those 
of  smallpox  after  smallpox,  and  then  the  argument  was 
reduced  to  a  competition  between  variolation  and  vac- 
cination. "You  inoculators  with  smallpox,"  said  the 
vaccinators,  "  are  continually  having  smallpox  after 
variolation,  and  why  should  we  be  expected  to  be  more 
successful  ? "  Why,  indeed  !  The  inoculators  with 
smallpox  in  turn  denied  that  after  efficient  variolation 
smallpox  ever  occurred,  or  could  possibly  occur ;  and  thus 
the  wrangle  went  on.  One  thing  was  plain  and  certain 
— the  original  claim  of  Jenner  for  the  absolute  infalli- 
bility of  Horsegrease  Cowpox  as  a  preventive  of  Small- 
pox was  reduced  and  surrendered  bit  by  bit  until  it  came 
to  this  at  last — it  made  Smallpox  milder  ! 

These  repeated  surrenders  were,  however,  never  in- 
genuous. Mistakes  are  inevitable,  and  they  are  forgiven 
when  frankly  confessed ;  but  frank  confession  was  not 
Jenner's  habit.  When  vaccination  failures  had  become 
notorious  in  1808,  he  had  the  hardihood  to  assert,  that 
from  the  outset  he  had  recognised  that  as  smallpox  did 
not  always  avert  smallpox,  neither  did  he  expect  cowpox 
to  do  so  ;  and  cited  as  proof  of  his  prescience  this  passage 
from  Further  Observations  in  1799 — 

It  should  be  remembered  that  the  constitution  cannot,  by  previous 
infection,  be  rendered  totally  insusceptible  of  the  variolous  poison; 
neither  the  casual,  nor  the  inoculated  Smallpox,  whether  it  produce 
the  disease  in  a  mild  or  violent  way,  can  perfectly  extinguish  the 
susceptibility.* 

Here  Jenner  made  a  bold  draft  on  his  reader's  ignor- 
ance. It  was  his  claim  for  horsegrease  cowpox  that  it 
conferred  an  absolute  security  from  smallpox  without 
any  qualification  whatever.  The  assumed  prescience  in 
1799  is  completely  belied  when  we  refer  to  his  arrogant 
manifesto  of  1801.  These  are  his  words — 

The  scepticism  that  appeared  amongst  the  most  enlightened  of 
medical  men,  when  my  sentiments  on  Cowpox  were  first  pro- 
mulgated, was  highly  laudable.  To  have  admitted  the  truth 

*  Facts  for  the  most  part  unobserved,  or  not  duly  noticed  respecting 
Variolous  Contagion.  London,  1808,  4to,  pp.  17. 


JENNER'S  LATER  WRITINGS.  339 

of  a  doctrine,  at  once  so  novel  and  so  unlike  anything  that  ever 
appeared  in  the  Annals  of  Medicine,  without  the  test  of  the  most 
rigid  scrutiny,  would  have  bordered  upon  temerity ;  but  now, 
when  the  scrutiny  has  taken  place,  not  only  among  ourselves,  but 
in  the  first  professional  circles  in  Europe,  and  when  it  has  been 
uniformly  found  in  such  abundant  instances,  that  the  human  frame, 
when  once  it  has  felt  the  influence  of  the  genuine  Cowpox  in  the 
way  that  has  been  described,  is  never  afterwards,  at  any  period  of 
its  existence,  assailable  by  the  Smallpox,  may  I  not  with  perfect 
confidence  congratulate  my  country  and  society  at  large  on  their 
beholding,  in  the  mild  form  of  Cowpox,  an  antidote  that  is  capable 
of  extirpating  from  the  earth  a  disease  that  is  every  hour  devouring 
its  victims  ;  a  disease  that  has  ever  been  considered  as  the  severest 
scourge  of  the  human  race  !  * 

Cowpox  was  thus  set  forth  as  a  prophylactic  with 
powers  hitherto  unknown  and  unique;  so  that  Jenner  was 
cut  off  from  the  claim  of  its  equivalence  with  smallpox 
in  character  and  consequences.  He  knew  in  1799,  as 
we  have  seen,  that  infection  with  smallpox  did  not 
render  the  constitution  proof  against  the  subsequent 
influence  of  the  disease ;  but  in  1801,  as  we  see,  it  was 
his  express  contention  that  what  smallpox  failed  to  do 
that  cowpox  did — it  protected  the  constitution  perfectly 
and  for  ever  from  smallpox,  and  nothing  to  compare 
with  it  had  ever  appeared  in  the  Annals  of  Medicine.  It 
was  only  under  the  pressure  of  exposure  and  defeat  that 
he  humbled  himself  to  write  to  Dunning,  1st  March, 
1806— 

The  security  given  to  the  constitution  by  Vaccine  Inoculation  is 
exactly  equal  to  that  given  by  the  Variolous.  To  expect  more  from 
it  would  be  wrong.  As  failures  in  the  latter  are  constantly  present- 
ing themselves,  we  must  expect  to  find  them  in  the  former  also,  f 

To  this  pass  was  the  infallible  preservative  from 
smallpox,  with  nothing  to  match  it  in  the  Annals 
of  Medicine,  reduced  within  the  experience  of  seven 
years  ! 

The  most  thorough-going  and  far-reaching  of  Jenner's 

*  A  Continuation  of  Facts  and  Observations  relative  to  Cowpox.     By 
Edward  Jenner,  M.D.     London,  1801. 
t  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  ii.  p.  28. 


340  VACCINATION. 


excuses  for  vaccination  failures  were  herpetic  affections 
of  the  skin.     In  his  journal  we  read — 

Inoculated  C.  F.  a  second  time.  It  is  very  evident  that  the 
affection  of  the  skin  called  red  gum  deadens  the  effect  of  the  Vaccine 
Virus.  This  infant  was  covered  with  it  when  inoculated  four  days 
ago.  The  same  happened  with  Mrs.  D.'s  infant.* 

To  Mr.  Dunning  he  wrote  from  Cheltenham,  October 
25th,  1804— 

How  frequently  does  the  Vaccine  Disease  become  entangled  with 
herpes  !  I  see  that  the  herpetic  fluid  is  one  of  those  morbid  poisons 
which  the  human  body  generates,  and  when  generated,  that  it  may 
be  perpetuated  by  contact.  Children  who  feed  on  trash  at  this 
season  of  the  year  are  apt  to  get  distended  bellies,  and  on  them  it 
often  appears  about  the  lips.  This  is  the  most  familiar  example 
that  I  know.  A  single  vesicle  is  capable  of  deranging  the  action 
of  the  vaccine  pustule.  Subdue  it,  and  all  goes  on  correctly.f 

And  again  to  the  same  correspondent,  23rd  December, 
1804- 

My  opinion  is  that  the  chief  interference  with  the  success  of 
Vaccination  is  herpes  in  some  form  or  another.  I  have  discovered 
that  it  is  a  very  Proteus,  assuming  as  it  thinks  fit  the  character  of 
the  greater  part  of  the  irritative  eruptions  that  assail  us.  f 

Having  thus  detected  an  all-sufficient  explanation 
of  the  failure  of  vaccination  to  prevent  smallpox,  he 
communicated  his  discovery  to  the  Medical  and  Physi- 
cal Journal,  August,  1804,  in  a  paper  entitled,  "  On 
the  Varieties  and  Modifications  of  the  Vaccine  Pustule 
occasioned  by  an  Herpetic  State  of  the  Skin,"  but  he 
complained  to  Dunning  "that  it  seemed  not  to  have 
excited  the  slightest  interest."  In  order  to  call  attention 
afresh  to  the  subject,  he  had  the  article  reprinted  as  a 
pamphlet  at  Cheltenham  in  1806  and  at  Gloucester  in 
1819,  but  in  vain.  He  complained  to  Baron  in  1817 
that  he  could  not  get  the  Board  of  the  National  Vaccine 
Establishment  to  attend  to  his  cautions  touching  the  inter- 
ference of  cutaneous  diseases  with  the  progress  of  the 
vaccine  vesicle.  "  I  am  afraid,"  he  observed,  "  that  the 

*  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol  i.  p.  449.         t  Ibid. ,  vol.  ii.  p.  344. 
J  lUd.t  vol.  ii.  p.  26. 


JENNER'S  LATER  WRITINGS.  341 

extreme  ignorance  of  medical  men  on  this  subject  will 
destroy  the  advantages  which  the  world  ought  to  derive 
from  the  practice."* 

What  of  course  medical  men  with  the  least  common 
sense  perceived  was,  that  the  excuse  provided  for  vac- 
cination failures  was  too  liberal  to  be  worth  anything. 
If  the  least  cutaneous  eruption  was  sufficient  to  frustrate 
vaccination,  what  operation  could  be  pronounced  effi- 
cient ?  for  it  could  scarcely  be  intended  that  every  patient 
should  be  stripped  to  the  skin  and  minutely  examined 
for  herpetic  vesicles.  There  was  nothing  transitory 
in  Jenner's  opinion  about  herpes :  he  harped  upon  its 
mischiefs  and  omnipresence  to  the  close  of  his  life. 
William  Dillwyn  of  Walthamstow  having  asked  him 
for  any  observations  that  occurred  to  him  on  the  practice 
of  vaccination  for  the  benefit  of  Friends  in  Philadelphia, 
Jenner  replied  in  a  letter  dated  Berkeley,  19bh  August, 
1818,  in  which  we  find  these  remarks — 

I  must  candidly  acknowledge  that  I  arn  not  at  all  surprised  that 
a  partial  prejudice  should  now  and  then  lift  up  its  head  against 
Vaccination.  It  is  called  into  existence,  not  from  anything  faulty 
in  the  principle,  but  from  its  wrong  and  injudicious  application. 
For  example,  a  child,  or  a  family  of  children,  may  be  in  such  a 
state,  that  the  action  of  the  vaccine  fluid  when  applied  to  the  skin 
shall  be  either  wholly  or  partially  resisted.  It  may  either  produce 
no  effect  at  all,  or  it  may  produce  pustules  varying  considerably 
in  their  rise,  progress  and  general  appearance  from  those  which 
have  been  designated  correct.  It  was  about  the  year  1804  that  I 
was  fortunate  enough  to  discover  the  general  cause  of  these  devia- 
tions, and  no  sooner  was  it  fully  impressed  on  my  mind,  than  I 
published  it  to  the  world.  Yet  few,  very  few  indeed,  among  those 
who  vaccinate,  have  paid  any  attention  to  it ;  yet  I  am  confident, 
from  the  review  of  the  practice  on  an  immense  scale,  that  it  is  a 
matter  which  has  a  greater  claim  on  our  attention  than  any  one 
thing  besides  connected  with  Vaccination — indeed  I  may  say  than 
any  other  thing.  What  I  allude  to  is  a  coincident  eruptive  state 
of  the  skin,  principally  bearing  what  we  call  the  herpetic  or  eruptive 
character.  If  we  vaccinate  a  child  under  its  influence,  we  are  apt 
to  create  confusion.  The  pustule  will  participate  in  the  character 
of  the  herpetic  blotch,  and  the  two  thus  become  blended,  forming 
an  appearance  that  is  neither  vaccine  nor  herpetic ;  but  the  worst 

*  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  ii.  p.  223. 


342  VACCINATION. 


of  it  is  that  the  patient  does  not  receive  that  perfect  security  from 
Smallpox  infection  which  is  given  by  the  perfect  pustule.* 

These  complaints  of  the  indifference  of  the  medical 
world  to  his  prophesying,  show  how  completely  the 
business  of  vaccination  had  passed  out  of  Jenner's  hands. 
The  influence  of  herpes  on  vaccination,  although  declared 
by  him  to  be  of  the  utmost  importance,  even  to  the  ex- 
tent of  imperilling  the  advantages  of  the  practice,  was 
disregarded  as  unworthy  of  serious  attention. 

Another  of  Jenner's  apologetics  was  a  pamphlet  in 
1808  -f-  designed  to  explain  away  the  failure  of  the  vario- 
lous  test — the  test  that  deceived  so  many  in  the  early 
days  of  vaccination.  The  inoculated  with  cowpox  were 
inoculated  with  smallpox,  and  when  the  smallpox  did 
not  "  take,"  it  was  said,  "  Behold  the  perfect  protection!" 
The  smallpox  inoculators  complained  bitterly  of  the 
hocus-pocus.  "  No  wonder,"  they  said,  "  that  when  the 
system  is  in  a  fever  with  bestial  corruption,  that  human 
pox  will  not '  take/  but  try  after  awhile."  And  they  did 
try  after  awhile,  and  it  was  found  that  the  vaccinated 
could  be  inoculated  with  smallpox  like  the  unvaccinated. 
Indeed,  when  it  was  seen  that  the  vaccinated  fell  victims 
to  smallpox,  many  who  had  been  vaccinated  resorted  to 
the  smallpox  inoculators  for  their  supposed  superior  pro- 
tection, and  received  it  without  hindrance  from  their 
previous  vaccination.  It  therefore  became  judicious  to 
disown  the  variolous  test ;  but  neither  in  this  case  was 
the  surrender  frankly  made,  but  with  prevarication  that 
deprived  it  of  all  grace.  What  the  smallpox  inoculators 
maintained,  Jeriner  had  to  allow,  but  after  this  fashion — 

My  principal  object  is  to  guard  those  who  may  think  fit  to 
inoculate  with  variolous  matter  after  Vaccination  from  unnecessary 
alarms  ;  a  pustule  may  sometimes  be  thus  excited,  as  on  those  who 
have  previously  gone  through  Smallpox  ;  febrile  action  in  the  consti- 
tution may  follow ;  and,  as  has  been  exemplified,  a  slight  eruption. 

*  Letter  from  Dr.  Edward  Jenner  to  William  Dillwyn,  Esq.,  on  the 
Effects  of  Vaccination  in  Preserving  from  the  Smallpox.  Philadelphia 
Vaccine  Society.  Philadelphia,  1818.  Pp.  20. 

t  Facts  for  the  most  part  unobserved,  or  not  duly  noticed,  respecting 
Variolous  Contagion.  London,  1808.  4to,  pp.  17. 


JEXNER'S  LATER  WRITINGS.  343 

For  the  variolous  he  recommended  the  substitution  of 
the  vaccine  test ;  saying — 

At  the  commencement  of  Vaccination,  I  deemed  the  Variolous 
Test  necessary ;  but  I  now  feel  confident  that  we  have  one  of  equal 
efficacy,  and  infinitely  less  hazardous  in  the  re-insertion  of  the 
vaccine  lymph — 

Which  was  to  say  that  vaccination  immediately  after 
vaccination  would  be  found  impossible — the  later  practice 
of  periodical  re- vaccination  being  unforeseen. 

Jenner  might  have  perceived  that  after  his  proclama- 
tion of  the  influence  of  herpes  on  vaccination,  there  was 
nothing  to  be  said  for  the  variolous  test.  When  he  con- 
sented to  run  vaccination  on  the  same  terms  as  variola- 
tion,  and  admitted  that  it  would  be  wrong  to  expect 
more  from  the  one  practice  than  from  the  other,  he  was 
bound  in  consistency  to  allow  that  if  vaccination  was 
frustrated  by  eruptions  of  the  skin,  it  was  matter  of 
consequence  that  variolation  should  be  frustrated  by  the 
fever  of  vaccination.  He  informed  Dillwyn  that  he 
destroyed  cutaneous  eruptions  by  the  application  of 
unguentum  hydrargyri  nitrati,  and  then  vaccinated 
with  success.  The  smallpox  inoculators  did  so  likewise. 
When  the  irritation  induced  by  vaccination  had  had  time 
to  subside,  they  too  variolated  with  success. 

The  letter  to  Dillwyn,  1818,  contains  some  other  points 
which  it  is  instructive  to  note.  For  example,  the  follow- 
ing passage  proves  two  things,  first,  how  notorious  had 
become  vaccination  failures ;  and,  second,  how  vaccina- 
tion, from  an  easy  art  that  any  one  might  practise,  had 
been  converted  into  a  mystery  to  which  even  "  an  emi- 
nent surgeon"  might  be  unequal.  Jenner  says — 

One  word  more  with  respect  to  prejudice.  How  frequently 
have  we  seen  in  the  public  prints  paragraphs  of  this  description — 
"  A  gentleman's  family,  consisting  of  three  or  four  or  half-a-dozen 
children,  were  vaccinated  by  an  eminent  surgeon,  and  all  went 
through  the  disease  in  the  most  satisfactory  manner,  and  were 
pronounced  safe  ;  yet,  on  being  exposed  to  the  infection  of  the 
Smallpox,  they  all  had  the  disease,  but  happily  they  all  recovered." 
Here,  Sir,  the  mind  becomes  entangled  with  a  false  association. 
The  public  conceive  that  an  eminent  surgeon  must  be  a  perfect 


344  VACCINATION. 


master  of  this  little  branch  of  our  art ;  but  it  often  happens  that 
he  has  not  stooped  to  look  at  anything  beyond  its  outline ;  and 
when  deviations  arise  in  the  progress  of  the  pustules  [as  from 
herpes]  to  that  extent  which  I  have  pointed  out  as  momentous, 
they  are  passed  by  without  attracting  any  particular  attention. 

A  report  having  got  abroad  that  Jenner  had  renounced 
his  faith  in  vaccination,  he  replied  to  Dillwyn — 

My  confidence  in  the  efficacy  of  Vaccination  to  guard  the  con- 
stitution from  Smallpox  is  not  in  the  least  diminished.  That 
exceptions  to  the  rule  have  appeared,  and  that  they  will  appear,  I 
am  ready  to  admit.  They  have  happened  after  Smallpox  Inocula- 
tion ;  and  by  the  same  rule,  as  the  two  diseases  are  so  similar, 
they  will  also  happen  after  Vaccine  Inoculation. 

In  presence  of  such  a  declaration,  it  is  easy  to  under- 
stand why  the  Inquiry  with  its  supplements  was  kept 
out  of  print,  and  never  referred  to.  His  confidence  in 
vaccination  not  in  the  least  diminished !  In  the  words 
cited,  he  surrendered  afresh  the  claim  with  which  he 
started,  and  for  which  he  was  paid,  namely,  that  inocula- 
tion with  cowpox  rendered  the  constitution  proof  against 
smallpox  for  life,  and  that  the  protection  thus  afforded 
was  without  precedent  in  medical  experience. 

Having  thus,  under  stress  of  necessity,  reduced  vacci- 
nation to  the  level  of  variolation,  and  tried  to  shelter  the 
failures  of  the  one  practice  under  those  of  the  other,  the 
spirit  of  the  old  quack  surviving,  he  went  on  to  prophesy 
in  the  familiar  strain — 

It  is  a  curious  and  most  delightful  fact  that  Smallpox  is  flying 
before  Vaccination  in  all  directions.  In  a  wide  district  around  me, 
embracing  the  most  populous  part  of  the  county  of  Gloucester, 
the  Smallpox  is  scarcely  heard  of ;  and  if  it  does  happen  to  appear 
from  infection  brought  by  the  wandering  pauper,  it  either  finds 
itself  insulated,  or  is  rendered  incapable  of  spreading  by  giving 
immediately  the  vaccine  security  to  those  within  its  atmosphere 
who  may  happen  to  remain  unprotected. 

With  Jenner's  turn  for  romance,  there  is  no  need  for 
dealing  with  a  statement  like  the  foregoing  seriously, 
else  we  might  ask  what  was  the  prevalence  of  smallpox 
in  Gloucestershire  before  vaccination  ?  and  to  what  ex- 
tent had  it  been  cultivated  by  inoculators  ?  Throughout 
England  there  was  a  remarkable  subsidence  of  smallpox 


JENNER'S  LATER  WRITINGS.  345 

precedent  to  the  introduction  of  vaccination  (for  which 
vaccination  obtained  the  credit),  which  subsidence  was 
no  doubt  accelerated  by  the  cessation  of  variolation. 
Jenner  resumes  — 

Wherever  Vaccination  has  been  universally  practised,  there  the 
Smallpox  ceases  to  exist.  It  matters  not  how  wide  the  district,  or 
how  populous  the  city,  the  result  is,  and,  from  the  nature  of  things, 
must  be  the  same.  There  is  scarcely  a  part  of  the  civilised  world 
that  cannot  bear  testimony  to  the  truth  of  this  position.  For  extent 
of  territory,  we  may  turn  our  eyes  to  our  possessions  in  the  East, 
and  to  various  parts  of  South  America ;  and  to  towns  and  cities, 
many  of  the  most  conspicuous  in  Europe. 

In  the  island  of  Ceylon,  the  ravages  of  Smallpox  were  dreadful, 
although  many  efforts  had  been  made  to  lessen  its  fatality  by 
Variolous  Inoculation.  This,  wherever  it  was  practised,  produced 
a  spreading  of  the  disease,  and  made  a  bad  matter  worse  ;  so  that 
the  people  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  it.  But  after  a  little 
time  they  took  to  Vaccine  Inoculation  very  readily,  and  Smallpox 
became  totally  extinct. 

From  Sweden,  too,  we  have  a  report  that  proves  the  extinction 
of  Smallpox  throughout  the  kingdom.  Now  as  the  good  sense  of 
the  Swedes  brought  about  this  happy  event,  why  should  not 
Britain  avail  herself  of  the  great  gift,  and  employ  it  to  the  same 
effect  ?  Here  the  Boon  is  distributed  with  a  partial  and  a  sparing 
hand,  and  consequently  Smallpox  still  exists  in  several  parts  of 
our  island. 

There  was  no  checking  Jenner  when  he  rose  into 
rhodomontade  about  the  myriads  of  Asia  and  the  vast- 
ness  of  America,  but  descending  to  the  definite  in  Ceylon 
and  Sweden  we  can  test  him  with  precision,  and  as  to 
both  we  shall  find  his  statements  at  wide  variance  with 
facts.  For  the  present,  however,  let  us  keep  to  our  own 
country,  and  note  especially  what  he  had  to  assert  of 
London  in  1818 — 

Nevertheless  I  have  the  happiness  to  say,  that  since  the  first 
promulgation  of  my  discovery  in  1798,  the  deaths  of  Smallpox  in 
the  British  Realms,  according  to  the  best  estimates  I  can  form,  are 
reduced  from  more  than  40,000  to  less  than  6,000  annually.  The 
metropolis  for  the  last  ten  or  twelve  years  exhibited  a  reduction  of 
about  one  half  only ;  but  during  the  last  two  years,  Vaccination 
has  been  more  extensively  practised  than  ever,  both  from  the 
benevolence  of  private  individuals  and  the  faculty,  and  by  public 
institutions ;  and  this  year,  1818,  promises  a  far  greater  reduction 
in  the  number  of  deaths  than  any  that  has  preceded  it. 


346 


VACCINATION. 


In  London  in  1818  the  deaths  from  smallpox  were  low 
(421) ;  but  a  single  year  is  of  little  account,  and  must  be 
viewed  in  relation  to  preceding  years.  Here  we  have  a 
statement  for  the  decade,  1811-20,  taken  from  the  metro- 
politan Bills  of  Mortality. 


YEARS. 

1811 
1812 
1813 
1814 
1815 
1816 
1817 
1818 
1819 
1820 


1801-1810 
1791-1800 


Burials  from 
all  diseases. 

17,043 
•  18,295 
17,322 
19,783 
19,560 
20,316 
19,968 
19,705 
19,228 
19,348 


190,568 
185,737 
198,801 


From 
Smallpox. 

751 

1287 
898 
638 
725 
653 

1051 
421 
712 
792 

7928 
12,534 
18,477 


From 

Fevers. 

906 

783 

714 

908 

1309 

1299 

1299 

1170 

1150 

1156 


10,694 
16,204 
19,880 


From 
Measles. 

235 

427 
550 
817 
711 
1106 
725 
728 
695 
720 

6714 

5680 
2707 


From  this  statement  we  see  that  the  decrease  in  Lon- 
don smallpox  that  set  in  toward  the  close  of  the  18th 
Century  was  maintained ;  but  that  vaccination  had  aught 
to  do  with  the  decrease  there  is  no  reason  to  believe — 
unless  in  so  far  as  the  new  practice  discouraged  variola- 
tion.  How,  we  ask,  could  -the  vaccination  of  one-tenth 
of  the  Londoners  (if  so  many)  reduce  the  smallpox  among 
nine-tenths  ?  We  have  also  to  observe  that  mortality 
from  fevers  abated  in  common  with  smallpox;  and  it 
cannot  be  pretended  that  that  abatement  was  also  due  to 
vaccination !  The  rational  assumption  is,  that  what 
diminished  fevers  in  London,  likewise  diminished  small- 
pox. Nor  should  we  overlook  the  fact,  that  as  the 
deaths  from  smallpox  declined,  those  from  measles  in- 
creased ;  nor  the  probability  that  many  deaths  formerly 
ascribed  to  smallpox  were  derived  from  measles,  and  that 
part  of  the  decline  in  one  column  is  accounted  for  by  the 
increase  in  the  other. 

Jenner's  assertion,  that  the  national  mortality  from 
smallpox  had  been  reduced  from  more  than  40,000  to 


JENNER'S  LATER  WRITINGS.  347 

less  than  6000  annually,  had  no  basis  whatever  in 
reality.  As  we  know,  the  40,000  deaths  were  got  by 
multiplying  the  deaths  of  a  bad  year  of  London  small- 
pox by  the  population  of  the  United  Kingdom — as  if 
London  were  the  standard  of  England,  Ireland,  and 
Scotland !  How  he  obtained  the  reduced  number  of  6000 
we  are  left  to  conjecture.  In  reviewing  Jenner's  writings 
we  are  startled  with  his  inconsistencies,  and  scarcely  less 
with  the  carelessness  and  credulity  of  his  adherents. 
•He  set  out  with  the  common  knowledge  that  cowpox  did 
not  prevent  smallpox,  and  for  that  reason  he  substituted 
pox  generated  by  horsegrease  on  the  cow.  Horsegrease 
cowpox  could  not,  however,  be  procured  on  demand ;  and 
was,  moreover,  disliked  on  the  score  of  its  origin ;  and 
cowpox  was  resorted  to  by  Pearson  and  Woodville,  and 
diffused  everywhere  with  acclamation ;  and  Jenner  did 
not  only  not  object,  but  took  credit,  and  actually  was 
allowed  to  take  credit  for  the  pox  he  had  described  as 
ineffective  for  the  purpose  designed  !  By  and  bye  cowpox 
from  horsegrease,  or  horsepox,  according  to  the  original 
recipe,  was  obtained  and  brought  into  circulation  with 
Jenner's  sympathy,  if  without  his  open  approval — he  dis- 
cerning that  praise  and  pay  were  not  to  be  had  from  that 
notion.  After  a  while,  horsegrease,  or  horsepox,  was 
used  for  inoculation  without  the  intervention  of  the  cow ; 
and  that  too  entered  into  currency  as  vaccine,  Jenner 
himself  employing  and  distributing  it,  although  accord- 
ing to  his  Inquiry  it  was  not  to  be  trusted  to  prevent 
smallpox. 

I  repeat  these  facts,  even  at  the  risk  of  tedium,  because 
it  is  essential  to  have  them  clearly  apprehended.  For  at 
least  three  descriptions  of  virus  Jenner  stood  responsible, 
namely — 

I. — Horsegrease  Cowpox — the  virus  warranted  in  his 
Inquiry. 

II. — Cowpox,  known  by  Jenner  to  be  ineffective  in 
preventing  smallpox,  but  favoured  by  the  medical  pro- 
fession and  the  public. 

III. — Horsegrease  (said  to  have  been  horsepox),  also 


348  VACCINATION. 


described  by  Jenner  as  ineffective,  but  latterly  used  and 
diffused  by  him. 

To  which  of  these  did  he  attribute  the  success  claimed 
for  vaccination  ?  Apparently  to  all  indifferently ;  but  if 
one  were  as  good  as  the  others,  why  did  he  not  say  so, 
and  proceed  to  explain  how  it  was  that  cowpox  did  not 
save  the  Gloucestershire  milk-maids,  nor  horsegrease  the 
farriers  from  smallpox  ?  Was  it  that  the  power  to  put 
such  questions,  and  to  answer  them,  does  not  consist  with 
the  quack's  intelligence;  and  that  in  his  lucre  he  rests 
content  ?  Observe,  too,  how  when  credit  was  to  be  had 
for  London  vaccination,  Jenner  took  it,  though  at  mortal 
enmity  with  the  chief  agent  in  the  work,  repudiating 
Walker's  practice  as  subversive  of  principles  he  con- 
sidered essential  to  success. 

Jenner 's  final  publication  in  1822  had  nothing  to  do 
with  vaccination,  but  was  a  bid  for  fame  in  a  new  direc- 
tion.* It  was  an  attempt  to  originate  a  new  method  of 
cure  by  irritating  the  skin  with  tartarated  antimony. 
He  had  dabbled  with  the  chemical  when  a  young  man, 
and  John  Hunter  had  suggested  that  his  preparation 
should  be  sold  and  puffed  as  Jenner's  Tartar  Emetic.  In 
his  last  years  he  returned  to  it,  and  produced  a  series  of 
cases  to  prove  how  many  diseases  might  be  alleviated  and 
removed  by  using  it  as  a  counter-irritant — just  as  in  the 
Inquiry  he  recommended  cowpox  inoculation  with  the 
same  intention.  The  matter  does  not  concern  us  further 
than  to  observe  that  the  vesicles  and  scars  produced  by 
tartarated  antimony  are  almost  indistinguishable  from 
those  of  vaccination ;  and  that  Hufeland,  the  German 
Nestor  of  Medicine,  taught  and  proved  that  tartar  emetic 
was  every  whit  as  effective  against  smallpox  as  cowpox — 
an  opinion  from  which  I  see  no  reason  to  dissent. 

*  A  Letter  to  Charles  Henry  Parry,  M.D.,  on  the  Influence  of  Artificial 
Eruptions  in  certain  diseases  incidental  to  the  Human  Body ;  ivith  an  In- 
quiry respecting  the  probable  advantages  to  be  derived  from  further  experi- 
ments. By  Edward  Jenner,  M.D.,  LL.D.,  F.R.S.,  M.N.I.F.,  etc.,  and 
Physician  to  the  King.  London,  1822.  4to,  pp.  68. 


BARON'S  LIFE  OF  JENNER.  349 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 
BARON'S  LIFE  OF  JENNER. 

WE  owe  much  to  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  but  as  a  collec- 
tion of  evidence  rather  than  as  an  organic  biography. 
It  is  verbose  and  loosely  put  together,  and  would  never 
be  read  unless  by  some  one  in  quest  of  information,  or 
with  nothing  better  to  do.  Fortunately  Baron  was 
reverent  and  not  critical.  Jenner  was  to  him  a  sacred 
being,  admirable  in  all  relations,  whose  only  contention 
was  with  "  the  blindness  and  wickedness  of  his  tra- 
ducers."  Lives  written  in  this  temper  are  often  most 
instructive.  Tales  are  told  and  letters  produced  in  pious 
simplicity  that  biographers  of  the  judicious  order  dis- 
creetly suppress. 

Baron  made  Jenner's  acquaintance  in  the  summer  of 
1808  when  he  was  living  at  Fladong's  Hotel,  Oxford 
Street,  revelling  in  a  fool's  paradise  as  to  his  importance 
in  the  formation  of  the  National  Vaccine  Establishment. 
Baron  had  recently  come  from  Edinburgh,  and  says, — 

I  was  about  to  commence  practice  :  all  the  world  was  before 
me.  In  seeking  the  acquaintance  of  Jenner  I  was  impelled  mainly 
by  a  desire  to  do  homage  to  a  man  whose  public  and  private  char- 
acter had  already  secured  my  warmest  admiration.  I  little  thought 
that  it  would  so  speedily  lead  to  an  intimacy,  and  ultimately  to  a 
friendship,  which  terminated  only  at  his  death,  and  placed  me  in 
a  relationship  to  his  memory  that  no  one  could  have  anticipated. 
The  greatness  of  his  fame,  his  exalted  talents,  and  the  honours 
heaped  upon  him  by  all  the  most  distinguished  public  bodies  of 
the  civilised  world,  while  they  made  me  desirous  of  offering  my 
tribute  of  respect  to  him,  forbade  the  expectation  of  more  than  such 
an  acknowledgment  as  a  youth,  circumstanced  as  I  was,  might 
have  expected.  I  soon,  however,  perceived  that  I  had  to  do  with 
an  individual  who  did  not  square  his  manners  by  the  cold  formality 
of  the  world.  He  condescended  as  to  an  equal ;  the  restraint  and 
embarrassment  that  might  naturally  have  been  felt  in  the  presence 
of  one  so  eminent  vanished  in  an  instant.  The  simple  dignity  of 
his  aspect,  the  kind  and  familiar  tone  of  his  language,  and  the 
perfect  sincerity  and  good  faith  manifested  in  all  he  said  and  did, 


350  VACCINATION. 


could  not  fail  to  win  the  heart  of  anyone  not  insensible  to  such 
qualities.  Though  more  than  twenty  years  have  elapsed  since  this 
interview  took  place,  I  remember  it,  and  all  its  accompaniments, 
with  the  most  perfect  accuracy.  He  was  dressed  in  a  blue  coat, 
white  waistcoat,  nankeen  breeches,  and  white  stockings.  All  the 
tables  in  his  apartment  were  covered  with  letters  and  papers  on 
the  subject  of  vaccination,  and  the  establishment  of  the  National 
Vaccine  Institution.  He  talked  to  me  of  the  excellent  article 
which  had  lately  appeared  in  the  Edinburgh  Revieiv,  relative  to 
the  vaccine  controversy.  He  spoke  with  great  good  humour  also 
of  the  conduct  of  the  anti-vaccinists,  and  gave  me  some  pamphlets 
illustrative  of  the  controversy  then  going  on.  The  day  before  he 
had  had  an  interview  with  the  Princess  of  Wales,  and  he  showed 
me  a  watch  which  her  Koyal  Highness  had  presented  to  him  on 
that  occasion.* 

The  passage  is  a  long  one,  but  it  has  some  value  in 
itself,  and  exhibits  Baron's  habitual  attitude  toward  his 
hero.  In  his  private  relations,  Jenner  was  amiable, 
but  it  is  with  his  public  life  that  we  are  concerned,  and 
find  so  reprehensible.  Mischievous  leaders  and  teachers 
are  frequentty  distinguished  by  private  graces;  and 
austere  personal  virtue  is  frequently  associated  with 
bland  indifference  to  conventional  immoralities  ;  and  we 
need  not  go  far  to  discover  counterparts  of  Jenner  in 
ordinary  life.  Nothing  is  commoner  than  sauvity  com- 
bined with  self-love  that  is  malignant  and  mendacious 
when  thwarted.  All  is  pleasant  as  long  as  admiration 
prevails,  but  with  dissent  or  resistance  the  sunny  temper 
vanishes,  and  clouds  of  contempt  and  fury  overspread 
the  spiritual  sky.  A  sharp  test  of  character  is  a  man's 
disposition "  to  his  adversaries ;  and  Jenner  was  never 
magnanimous.  His  conduct  to  Pearson,  Woodville,  and 
Walker  has  been  sufficiently  described ;  and  similar 
jealousy  and  spitefulness  were  displayed  to  whoever 
dared  to  impugn  his  infallibility  in  the  prevention  of 
smallpox.  No  one,  for  instance,  could  have  brought 
forward  the  fact  that  smallpox  occasionally  succeeded 
vaccination  with  more  simple  good  faith  than  Goldson ; 
yet  Jenner  wrote  of  him  with  insufferable  insolence — an 
insolence  that  is  thrown  into  stronger  relief  by  the  know- 

*  Vol.  ii.  p.  136. 


BARON'S  LIFE  OF  JENNER.  351 

ledge  that  what  Goldson  testified  is  accepted  at  this  day, 
even  by  vaccinators,  as  indisputable  rnatter-of-course. 
His  bully,  too,  John  Ring,  attacked  Goldson,  and  Jenner, 
in  writing  to  Dunning,  23rd  December,  1804,  thus  ex- 
cused his  brutality — 

You  speak  of  Ring  and  Goldson.  Recollect  there  was  not  time 
to  be  cool.  What  lover  of  Vaccination — what  man,  well  acquainted 
with  its  nature,  and  that  of  Smallpox,  could  read  Goldson's  book, 
and  lay  it  down  coolly  ?  Ring,  the  moment  he  read  it,  and  what 
indeed  was  infinitely  worse  than  the  book  itself,  its  murderous 
harbinger — the  advertisement,  instantly  charged  his  blunderbuss, 
and  fired  it  in  the  face  of  the  author.  I  must  freely  confess,  I  do 
not  feel  so  cool  about  this  Mr.  Goldson  as  you  do.  His  book  has 
sent  many  a  victim  to  a  premature  grave ;  and  would  have  sent 
many  more,  but  for  the  humanity  and  zeal  of  yourself  and  others 
who  stepped  forward  to  counteract  its  dreadful  tendency.* 

In  the  same  spirit  he  wrote  to  Baron,  6th  November, 
1810,  of  Brown  of  Musselburgh,  who  had  reported  cer- 
tain cases  of  smallpox  after  vaccination  in  a  London 
newspaper — 

Some  notice  must  be  taken  of  Mr.  Brown's  communication ;  but 
if  he  thinks  he  shall  be  able  to  draw  me  into  controversy,  he  will 
be  mistaken.  His  letter,  under  the  veil  of  candour  and  liberality, 
is  full  of  fraud  and  artifice ;  for  he  knows  that  every  insinuation 
and  argument  he  has  advanced,  have  been  refuted  by  the  first 
medical  characters  in  Edinburgh  and  Dublin.  But  the  mild, 
gentle,  complaisant  antagonist,  is  a  character  more  difficult  to  deal 
with  than  one  who  boldly  shows  his  ferocity,  f 

As  applied  to  Brown,  sagacious  and  sincere,  this  was 
the  very  ecstasy  of  abuse.  Even  Brown's  adversaries 
within  his  own  neighbourhood,  ultimately  yielded  to  his 
contention.  In  the  Edinburgh  Medical  and  Surgical 
Journal  of  July,  1818,  we  read — 

Before  we  conclude,  we  must  in  justice  to  ourselves  pay  the 
amende  honorable  to  Mr.  Brown  of  Musselburgh,  whose  opinions 
we  strenuously  controverted  in  1809 ;  and  to  which  we  now,  in 
1818,  confess  ourselves  partly  converts  in  consequence  of  increased 
experience  and  observation. 

In  short,  calm  discussion  of  vaccination  with  Jenner 
was  never  possible.  Inquiry  was  borne  down  with 

*  Vol.  ii.  p.  24.        t  Ibid.  p.  47. 


352  VACCINATION. 


clamour,  and  scepticism  denounced  as  malevolence.  "He 
could  not  altogether  escape,"  says  Baron,  "  from  the  an- 
noyance occasioned  by  the  blindness  and  wickedness  of 
his  traducers  "  * — and  all  were  traducers  who  were  not 
believers.  Indeed,  Baron  could  only  account  for  the 
perversity  of  those  who  did  not  recognise  Jenner  as  the 
saviour  of  mankind  from  smallpox  by  a  resort  to  the 
doctrine  of  inbred  depravity,  saying — 

We  are  compelled  to  believe  that  there  is  a  principle  in  our 
nature  which  has  too  strong  an  affinity  for  what  is  untrue  to  per- 
mit the  understanding  to  discern  or  acknowledge  an  opposite 
principle  till  both  the  moral  and  intellectual  vision  has  been 
purified  and  strengthened.! 

Purified  and  strengthened,  and  the  affinity  with  false- 
hood dissolved,  it  became  possible  for  the  understanding 
to  appreciate  the  virtue  of  cowpox  and  the  veracity  of 
its  advertiser ! 

Jenner,  it  may  be  said,  instinctively  resented  investi- 
gation. He  was  uneasy  in  conscious  duplicity.  He 
knew  there  was  no  safety  in  vaccination  as  practised ; 
for  the  cowpox  employed  was  not  the  horsegrease  cow- 
pox  he  had  commended  as  efficacious.  What  he  had 
prescribed  was  disregarded ;  what  he  had  condemned 
was  approved ;  but,  strange  to  say,  he  was  praised  and 
rewarded  by  the  world  as  if  cowpox  had  been  his  specific! 
Jenner  accepted  the  situation,  and  possibly  came  to  be- 
lieve (after  a  fashion)  that  he  was  enjoying  no  more  than 
his  own ;  but  under  the  circumstances  it  was  not  sur- 
prising that  he  shrank  from  criticism,  kept  his  early 
publications  out  of  the  way,  and  resorted  to  scolding 
and  shrieking  whenever  scrutiny  appeared  imminent. 

Worse  even  than  his  behaviour  to  investigators  and 
opponents  was  his  treatment  of  those  who  converted 
vaccination  to  practice.  The  Inquiry  was  no  handbook, 
and  Pearson,  Woodville,  and  other  early  vaccinators,  had 
to  make  their  own  way,  not  only  unassisted,  but  with 
Jenner  ready  to  appropriate  their  successes  and  to  re- 

*  Vol.  ii.  p.  148.  t  Vol.  ii.  p.  110. 


BARON'S  LIFE  OF  JENNER.  353 

proach  them  with  their  failures.  Baron  avers  that 
nothing  in  the  art  of  vaccination  was  due  to  any  one 
but  Jenner  himself,  qualifying  this  praise  with  a  slight 
exception  in  favour  of  Dr.  Bryce  of  Edinburgh,  who 
made  the  discovery  that  if  a  subject  under  vaccination 
is  re-vaccinated,  the  subsequent  inoculation  is  caught  up 
and  brought  to  maturity  with  the  precedent — a  pheno- 
menon that  as  Bryce's  Test  was  used  to  ascertain  whether 
true  vaccine  fever  was  operative.  But  even  Bryce  re- 
ceived scant  acknowledgment,  and  Baron  tries  to  make 
out  that  Jenner  was  possessed  of  the  fact  ere  it  was 
announced.*  Jenner's  meanness  toward  those  who  dis- 
played any  intelligent  independence  in  co-operation  with 
him  is  written  at  large  in  Baron's  biography,  but  with 
such  innocence  that  it  would  be  absurd  to  describe  it  as 
indecent.  His  good  faith  is  perfect,  and  it  is  only  a 
critical  reader  that  finds  out  how  he  is  identified  with 
•Tenner,  seeing  merit  nowhere  save  in  his  abject  servitors 
and  feminine  claque. 

Yaccinators  at  this  day  allow  that  the  influence  of 
vaccination  wears  out  and  ought  to  be  renewed;  yet 
Jenner  would  not  listen  for  a  moment  to  such  a  modi- 
fication of  its  perpetual  prophylaxy.  Baron  writes — 

The  year  1804,  in  Jenner's  estimation,  formed  an  era  in  the 
history  of  the  Variolas  Vaccines.  The  assertion,  that  the  Cowpox 
afforded  only  a  temporary  security  was  then  insisted  on.  Had  it 
been  correct,  it  would  have  deprived  the  discovery  of  nearly  all  its 
value.  This  assertion  was  very  easily  made  ;  and  in  the  infancy 
of  the  practice  could  not  be  well  disproved.  To  these  circumstances 
it  was  owing,  that  the  crude  and  unsupported  statements  of  Mr. 
Goldson  acquired  any  influence.  Dr.  Jenner  himself,  from  the 
commencement,  perceived  that  in  his  cases  of  failure,  Cowpox  had 
never  been  properly  taken,  f 

When  in  1813  Lord  Boringdon  introduced  his  bill  to 
Parliament  for  the  restriction  of  variolation,  Lord  Ellen- 
borough  observed — 

No  doubt  Vaccination  is  of  some  use,  but  if  the  noble  lord  con- 
siders it  a  complete  preventive  of  Smallpox,  I  differ  from  him  in 

*  Vol.  i.  p.  450.  t  Vol.  ii.  p.  18. 

23 


354  VACCINATION. 


opinion.  At  the  same  time,  I  have  proved  my  respect  for  the 
discovery  by  having  my  eight  children  vaccinated.  I  believe  in 
the  efficacy  of  Vaccination  to  a  certain  extent.  It  may  prevent 
the  disorder  for  eight  or  nine  years ;  and  in  a  large  city  like  this 
with  a  large  family  of  children,  even  this  limited  protection  is 
desirable. 

In  this  declaration  the  Chief  Justice  ivas  not  singular, 
but  expressed  the  general  conviction  of  the  public  who 
held  by  vaccination  in  spite  of  the  manifest  failure  of 
the  early  promises  made  for  it.  Nevertheless  Jenner 
was  extremely  annoyed :  it  was  to  him  as  the  formal 
deliverance  of  judgment.  Baron  says — 

I  have  seldom  seen  Jenner  more  disturbed  than  he  was  by  this 
occurrence;  not  certainly  because  he  had  any  fears  that  the  unsup- 
ported assertion  of  his  lordship  would  prove  correct,  but  because 
it  unhappily  accorded  with  popular  prejudices,  and  when  uttered 
by  such  a  person,  in  such  an  assembly,  was  calculated  to  do 
unspeakable  mischief  by  unsettling  the  confidence  of  numberless 
anxious  parents,  and  by  attempting  to  deprive  Vaccination  of  more 
than  half  its  virtue. * 

Thorough  was  Baron  in  his  defence  of  Jenner :  no 
inconsistency  appalled  him.  He  records  in  capitals  (as 
produced)  the  following  as  Jenner's  solemn  and  final 
testimony,  written,  a  few  days  before  he  expired,  on  the 
back  of  a  letter,  bearing  the  post-mark,  14th  January, 
1823— 

MY  OPINION  OF  VACCINATION  IS  PEECISELY  AS  IT  WAS  WHEN  I 
FIRST  PROMULGATED  THE  DISCOVERY.  IT  IS  NOT  IN  THE  LEAST 
STRENGTHENED  BY  ANY  EVENT  THAT  HAS  HAPPENED,  FOR  IT  COULD 
GAIN  NO  STRENGTH  J  IT  IS  NOT  IN  THE  LEAST  WEAKENED,  FOR  IF  THE 
FAILURES  YOU  SPEAK  OF  HAD  NOT  HAPPENED,  THE  TRUTH  OF  MY 
ASSERTIONS  RESPECTING  THOSE  COINCIDENCES  WHICH  OCCASIONED 
THEM  WOULD  NOT  HAVE  BEEN  MADE  OUT.f 

Self-deception  after  this  pattern  is  far  from  uncommon, 
and  is  proof  against  evidence  and  death  itself;  but  Jenner 
was  not  quite  so  crazy  as  his  words  imply.  From  his 
first  opinion  about  vaccination,  and  its  absolute  efficacy 
against  smallpox  (unlike  anything  hitherto  known  in 
medical  experience)  he  had  retreated  considerably.  Even 

*  Vol  ii.  p.  197.  +  Vol.  ii.  p.  311. 


BARON'S  LIFE  OF  JENNER.  355 

so  early  as  1804  he  had  reduced  his  claim  for  vaccination 
to  equality  with  variolation.    In  that  }Tear  he  observed — 

What  I  have  said  on  Vaccination  is  true.  If  properly  conducted, 
it  secures  the  constitution  as  much  as  Variolous  Inoculation 
possibly  can.  It  is  the  Smallpox  in  a  purer  form  than  that  which 
has  been  current  among  us  for  twelve  centuries  past.* 

And  again  Baron  cites  him  as  saying — 

Duly  and  efficiently  performed,  Vaccination  will  protect  the 
constitution  from  subsequent  attacks  of  Smallpox,  as  much  as  that 
disease  itself  will.  /  never  expected  that  it  would  do  more,  and  it 
will  not,  I  believe,  do  less.f 

Jenner  presumed  freely  on  the  forgetfulness  of  those 
he  addressed.  In  a  document  so  well  known  as  his 
petition  to  the  House  of  Commons  in  1802,  he  expressly 
claimed  that  a  person  inoculated  with  cowpox  was 
thereby  "  rendered  perfectly  secure  from  the  infection  of 
smallpox  through  life " ;  nor  would  the  furore  which 
attended  the  introduction  of  the  practice  have  been 
possible  had  it  been  set  forth  as  no  more  than  a  milder 
form  of  variolation.  That  cowpox  was  equivalent  to 
smallpox  for  inoculation  was  laughed  at  by  the  vario- 
lators;  but  that  a  vaccinated  person  was  as  safe  from 
smallpox  as  one  who  had  passed  through  the  disease, 
was  true  in  no  other  sense  than  that  Jenner  wished  it  to 
be  true,  and  prophesied  accordingly.  It  was  by  such 
contrivances  that  he  broke  his  own  fall,  and  alleviated 
the  disenchantment  of  the  credulous. 
•  Oddly  enough  Jenner's  fiction,  that  vaccination  was 
as  good  against  smallpox  as  smallpox  itself,  was  revived 
in  the  innocence  of  ignorance  by  Sir  William  Gull  before 
a  committee  of  the  House  of  Commons  in  1871.  "  Vac- 
cination is  as  protective  against  smallpox  as  smallpox 
itself,"  said  the  fashionable  physician.  Confutation  was, 
however,  at  hand.  Mr.  Marson  (for  thirty-five  years 
resident  surgeon  of  the  Highgate  Smallpox  Hospital) 
attested  that  cases  of  smallpox  after  smallpox  were  com- 
paratively rare — not  1  per  cent.;  whilst  84  per  cent,  of 

*  Vol.  ii.  p.  15.  f  Vol.  ii.  p.  135. 


356  VACCINATION. 

those  admitted  to  the  Hospital  in  1864  were  vaccinated. 
An  instructive  contrast  between  the  logic  of  fancy  and 
matter  of  fact ! 

Baron,  with  unscrupulous  disregard  of  evidence,  com- 
plains that  vaccination  should  ever  have  been  represented 
as  an  infallible  preventive  of  smallpox;  so  that  as  pointed 
out  in  the  Report  of  the  Royal  College  of  Physicians  in 
1807,  "  the  fate  of  the  new  practice  was  made  to  hang 
on  the  occurrence  of  a  single  case  of  smallpox";  and  goes 
on  to  observe — 

This,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  was  a  great  misapprehension ;  the 
opposers  of  Vaccination  endeavoured  to  place  the  fate  of  Vaccina- 
tion on  such  an  issue  ;  but  if  Jenner's  principles  be  duly  considered, 
he  never  at  any  time  sanctioned  such  an  idea ;  and  long  before  the 
practice  of  Vaccination  became  general,  he  anticipated  failures, 
and  explained  the  circumstances  under  which  they  were  most 
likely  to  occur.* 

The  summary  answer  to  this  statement  is,  that  it  is 
untrue.  Jenner  anticipated  no  failures.  On  the  con- 
trary, he  vehemently  denied  them ;  and  when  denial 
could  no  longer  avail,  he  invented  a  variety  of  excuses, 
such  as  spurious  cowpox  and  omnipresent  herpes,  to 
account  for  their  occurrence;  though  always  ready  (as 
we  have  seen)  to  hark  back  to  his  original  assertion  that 
vaccination  was  "  an  infallible  preventive  of  smallpox." 
Baron  did  not  like  the  word  "infallibility."  He  writes — 

I  am  not  sure  that  the  expression  was  ever  used  by  Dr.  Jenner 
himself.  If  he  did  use  it,  he  certainly  very  soon  accompanied  it 
with  the  necessary  qualification.  He  may  perhaps  at  the  outset 
have  stated  his  opinion  somewhat  too  decidedly;  but  no  one  quali- 
fied to  judge  can  doubt  that  from  the  very  beginning  he  was 
possessed  of  the  gauge  by  which  to  measure  the  virtues  of  Vaccin- 
ation, f 

Whether  he  did  make  use  of  the  word  "  infallible  "  is 
of  slight  importance.  There  are  various  modes  in  which 
the  same  meaning  may  be  conveyed,  and  Jenner's  was 
unequivocal.  It  was  in  1S01  that  appealing  to  the 
rigid  scrutiny  that  had  taken  place  in  the  first  profes- 

*  Vol.  ii.  p.  135.  f  Vol.  ii.  p.  134. 


BARON'S  LIFE  OF  JENNER.  357 

sional  circles  of  Europe,  he  deliberately  proclaimed  it  as 
certain — 

That  the  human  frame,  when  once  it  has  felt  the  influence  of 
the  genuine  Cowpox  in  the  way  that  has  been  described,  is  never 
afterwards,  at  any  period  of  its  existence,  assailable  by  the 
Smallpox.* 

When  Lord  Ellenborough  in  1813  described  vaccin- 
ation as  affording  no  more  than  a  temporary  security 
from  smallpox,  he  merely  expressed  the  diminished  con- 
fidence of  the  community  in  the  practice ;  but  it  is  the 
habit  of  adventurers  to  ascribe  adverse  manifestations  of 
public  feeling  to  petty  causes;  and  thus  Jenner  held  that 
the  Chief  Justice  was  indulging  a  personal  grudge  when 
he  threw  doubt  on  the  perpetual  efficacy  of  his  prescrip- 
tion. On  one  occasion,  so  ran  the  story,  Ellenborough 
was  relating  in  a  company  at  St.  James's  how  Jenner 
had  so  little  faith  in  cowpox  that  he  had  used  smallpox 
to  inoculate  his  own  child,  when  he  was  suddenly  con- 
fronted by  an  irate  personage,  who  exclaimed,  "  I  am 
Dr.  Jenner,  and  what  you  have  stated  is  not  true ! " 
whereupon  Ellenborough  slunk  aside  in  confusion.  The 
fact  of  the  rencontre  in  the  sensational  form,  we  may 
credit  as  we  please;  but  about  the  variolation  of  Jenner's 
child  there  is  no  doubt  whatever.  We  have  the  circum- 
stance recorded  by  himself  with  such  explanation  as  he 
considered  adequate. 

Turning  to  the  Inquiry,  we  find  under  Case  XXII. 
that  Robert  F.  Jenner,  aged  eleven  months,  was  vac- 
cinated on  12th  April,  1798,  and  that  he  did  not  receive 
the  infection."  The  operation  was  not  repeated,  and  he 
remained  unvaccinated.  Some  time  afterwards,  whilst 
Jenner  was  residing  at  Cheltenham,  Mr.  Cother,  a  sur- 
geon, happened  to  drop  in,  and  having  taken  the  child  in 
his  arms,  mentioned  in  the  course  of  conversation,  that 
he  had  just  left  a  family  suffering  from  smallpox.  "  Sir," 
cried  Jenner,  "you  know  not  what  you  are  doing!  That 
child  is  not  protected."  What  was  to  be  done  ?  "There 

*  Continuation  of  Facts  and  Observations,  p.  181. 


358 


VACCINATION. 


was  no  doubt  on  my  mind/'  says  Jenner,  "  that  the  boy 
was  infected  ; "  and  haying  none  of  the  precious  horse- 
grease  cowpox  in  his  possession,  he  held  that  he  was 
without  alternative,  and  by  Mr.  Cother  the  lad  was 
immediately  inoculated  with  smallpox. 

The  fact  in  due  course  got  abroad,  and,  as  Baron 
relates,  was  made  the  most  of  by  the  opponents  of  vac- 
cination— 

One  observed,  "  Dr.  Jenner  may  say  what  lie  likes  about  Vac- 
cination, but  we  know  for  certain  that  lie  has  inoculated  his  own 
son  with  Smallpox."  Another  repeated  this  statement  with  the 
addition,  that  he  had  done  so  because  he  mistrusted  Vaccination. 
A  third  added  another  tint  to  deepen  the  colouring,  affirming  that 
he  knew  that  Dr.  Jenner  had  abandoned  his  confidence  in  Vaccina- 
tion, and  the  proof  is  incontestable,  as  he  has  inoculated  his  own 
child  with  Smallpox.  These  stories  passed  from  mouth  to  mouth, 
and  afterwards  appeared  in  print  with  every  malignant  inter- 
pretation.* 

Such  talk  was  very  natural,  nor  was  it  without  justi- 
fication. Jenner  ought  to  have  proved  his  sincerity  by 
the  vaccination  of  his  son ;  and  he  who  denounced 
variolation  and  variolators  with  such  bitterness  might 
have  accepted  the  risk  of  infection  from  Mr.  Cother 
rather  than  have  compromised  himself  so  injuriously. 
Moreover  (as  was  asked  at  the  time)  if  the  child  was  in- 
fected, what  was  the  use  of  inoculation  ?  Variolation 
and  vaccination  (it  was  argued)  may  be  serviceable  in 
keeping  off  smallpox,  but  are  of  no  avail  after  infection. 

Vaccination  has  been  described  as  a  remarkable  sur- 
vival of  superstition  in  hygiene — many,  who  disowning 
all  other  dodges  for  the  maintenance  of  health,  holding 
by  it.  Of  course  Jenner  knew  nothing  of  hygiene  in  the 
scientific  sense — it  was  revealed  after  his  time ;  but  it  is 
noteworthy  that  in  none  of  his  publications  or  letters  is 
there  any  anticipation  of  the  truth  that  has  proved  so 
fruitful  in  our  experience,  namely,  that  ill-health  indi- 
cates ill-living,  and  that  the  misery  of  disease  is  only 
remediable  in  so  far  as  we  come  out  of  the  conditions  of 

*  Vol.  ii.  pp.  43-49  and  198. 


BARON'S  LIFE  OF  JENNER.  359 

disease.  Whilst  of  such  truth  he  knew  nothing,  he  might 
have  known  something.  It  lay  plainly  before  him  that 
smallpox  was  an  affliction  of  the  poor,  and  of  the  pros- 
perous in  so  far  as  they  shared  the  conditions  of  the 
poor,  but  he  never  recognised  the  fact.  On  the  contrary, 
he  cherished  the  fantasy  that  various  diseases  were 
derived  from  association  with  animals;  and  that  thus 
smallpox  originated  in  cowpox,  which  in  turn  came  from 
horsegrease.  "  There,"  said  he  to  his  nephew,  pointing 
to  a  horse  with  greasy  heels,  "  there  is  the  source  of 
smallpox."  *  To  entertain  such  an  opinion  was  to  be 
stone-blind  to  the  true  causes  of  disease,  and  therefore 
we  have  no  reason  for  surprise  that  the  Jenner  household 
lived  in  chronic  ill-health,  piously  submissive  to  what 
they  supposed  the  divine  will.  Typhus  fever  was  re- 
current in  the  household  without  a  suspicion  that  any- 
thing was  amiss  on  the  human  side.  There  was  a  genius 
named  Dawes  Worgan,  whom  Jenner  received  into  his 
family  as  tutor  to  his  son,  but  ere  a  year  had  elapsed  the 
poor  fellow  had  two  attacks  of  typhus,  and  finally  suc- 
cumbed to  pulmonary  consumption  in  1809,  in  his  nine- 
teenth year.  Chantry  Cottage,  Jenner's  residence  at 
Berkeley,  was  no  temple  of  Hygeia:  on  the  contrary, 
such  a  place  at  this  day  would  be  a  terror  to  a  respectable 
neighbourhood,  and  subject  to  the  attention  of  the  sani- 
tary inspector. 

The  principle  of  vaccination  conceded — that  health 
may  be  purchased  by  disease,  it  was  not  surprising  that 
it  was  thought  that  measles  and  scarlet  fever  could  be 
extirpated  by  similar  treatment.  Sir  Humphry  Davy 
suggested  that  hydrophobia  might  be  anticipated  by  the 
inoculation  of  another  animal  virus,  but  Jenner  held  that 
cowpox  should  be  tried — "nothing  like  leather."  It  was 
reported  from  Constantinople  that  the  plague  itself  was 
stayed  by  vaccination,  and  that  experiments,  exactly 
like  those  used  to  demonstrate  its  power  against  small- 
pox, had  been  repeated  with  complete  success.  There 

*  Vol.  i.  p.  135. 


260  VACCINATION. 

was  not,  however,  enterprise  in  the  East  for  the  devel- 
opment of  the  quackery. 

Jenner  taught  that  distemper  in  dogs  was  preventible 
by  vaccination,  and  accumulated  a  variety  of  "  first-rate 
evidence"  in  proof.  It  was  no  transitory  whim.  He 
vaccinated  twenty  of  the  King's  staghounds  in  1801,  and 
in  1809  contributed  a  paper  to  the  Medico-Chirurgical 
Society  on  the  subject,  wherein  he  expressed  the  opinion 
that  the  disease  had  only  existed  in  England  for  the 
past  half  century.  Several  great  fox  hunters  had  their 
hounds  vaccinated,  and  the  results  were  pronounced 
satisfactory.*  Why,  then,  was  the  practice  not  con- 
tinued ?  Why  is  not  distemper  exterminated  ?  May  we 
not  say  the  reason  is  plain  ?  The  first-rate  evidence  was 
illusory.  Men  are  apt  to  create  the  facts  they  wish  for, 
but  as  desire  subsides,  they  recover  their  normal  eye- 
sight. Cowpox,  we  are  persuaded,  was  as  good  against 
distemper  in  dogs  as  against  smallpox  in  human  beings, 
and  but  for  extraneous  causes,  it  would  have  been 
abandoned  for  the  one  as  for  the  other. 

For  Jenner  it  has  to  be  said,  that  if  deceived,  he  had 
much  to  excuse  his  self-deception.  There  are  men 
possessed  of  convictions  which  they  maintain  in  the  face 
of  an  indifferent  or  antagonistic  world,  but  Jenner  was 
not  such  a  man.  If  his  Inquiry  had  gone  the  way  of 
waste-paper,  he  would  have  offered  no  resistance  ;  but 
instead,  it  was  proclaimed  by  Pearson  as  worthy  of 
universal  attention,  and  the  hour  being  propitious,  the 
middle-aged  country  doctor  suddenly  found  himself 
treated  as  the  deliverer  of  mankind  from  smallpox, 
whilst  Pearson,  his  promoter,  was  swept  aside  as  a  half- 
hearted worshipper  of  the  new  divinity.  Adulation  was 
administered  without  measure,  and  if  Jenner  took  it  for 
true,  and  was  led  to  imagine  that  he  had  more  in  him 
than  he  ever  imagined,  what  marvel !  He  became  the 
centre  of  a  European  Graze  of  a  character  and  intensity 
that  is  perhaps  without  parallel.  Emperors  and  kings, 

*  Vol.  i.  pp.  444,  450 ;  Vol.  ii.  p.  148. 


BARON'S  LIFE  OF  JENNER.  361 

statesmen  and  philanthropists,  men  of  science,  and  in 
short  the  whole  educated  world  conspired  to  do  him 
reverence.  The  craze  gradually  abated,  and  the  abate- 
ment was  most  decided  in  the  country  of  its  origin,  and 
chiefly  in  London  where  cowpox  and  its  advertiser  were 
most  closely  scrutinised.  Jenner  abhorred  London. 
There  he  had  proposed  to  flourish  as  a  West-End  phy- 
sician, and  there  he  had  encountered  a  dismal  failure. 
There,  too,  his  antagonists  were  active,  and  their  demon- 
stration of  the  futility  of  his  assertions  most  conclusive. 
We  see  his  temper  toward  London  in  such  a  passage  as 
the  following  from  a  letter  to  Dunning,  dated  Cheltenham, 
21st  February,  1806— 

What  havoc  the  Anti-Vaccinists  have  made  in  town  by  the  re- 
introduction  of  Variolous  Inoculation !  It  is  computed  that  not 
less  than  6000  persons  in  the  metropolis,  and  the  adjacent  villages, 
have  fallen  victims  to  the  Smallpox  since  April  last.  One  would 
scarcety  conceive  it  possible,  but  these  murders  are,  for  the  most 
part,  to  be  attributed  to  the  absurd  productions  of  Moseley,  Rowley, 
and  that  pert  little  Squirrel,  to  say  nothing  of  Goldson.  It  is  about 
London  that  the  venom  of  these  deadly  serpents  chiefly  flows.* 

Whilst  the  doors  of  almost  every  scientific  corporation 
in  the  world  were  thrown  open  to  receive  him,  the  Royal 
College  of  Physicians  of  London  maintained  an  honour- 
able reserve ;  and  when  in  1814  his  claim  to  admission 
was  strongly  urged,  the  majority  insisted  that,  if  received, 
he  should  submit  to  the  usual  examination — a  sufficient 
check  in  Jenner's  case.f  The  College  has  been  reproached 
for  its  treatment  of  "the  immortal  benefactor  of  the 
human  race,"  but  it  is  forgotten  how  intimately  the 
leading  members  w^ere  acquainted  with  his  immortality, 
and  with  what  disgust  they  must  have  received  his 
confession  in  1807  as  to  the  non-existence  of  spurious 
cowpox. 

Toward  the  close  of  his  life,  Jenner  rarely  appeared  in 


*  Vol.  ii.  p.. 352.  The  London  Bills  of  Mortality  record  1685  deaths 

in  1805  and  1158  in  1806  from  Smallpox — numbers  in  no  respect 
extraordinary. 

t  Vol.  ii.  p.  191. 


362  VACCINATION. 


London.  His  last  visit  took  place  in  1814,  when  he  was 
presented  to  the  Emperor  of  Eussia.  "  I  am  happy  to 
think,"  said  Alexander,  "  that  you  have  received  the 
thanks,  the  applause,  and  the  gratitude  of  the  world ; " 
to  which  Jenner  made  answer,  "I  have  received  the 
thanks  and  the  applause,  but  not  the  gratitude  of  the 
world " — the  absent  gratitude  being  a  periphrase  for 
absent  cash,  and  a  hint  to  the  Czar  that  he  might  repeat 
the  superb  munificence  of  his  grandmother,  Catharine,  to 
her  inoculator  Dimsdale.  The  Emperor,  however,  gave 
nothing,  and  Jenner  retired  keenly  disappointed.  What- 
ever the  imperial  disposition,  Jenner  did  little  to  render 
it  more  propitious  by  using  his  audience  to  denounce 
Walker  and  the  Friends  by  whom  vaccination  was  at 
that  time  chiefly  promoted;  for  as  Alexander  said,  "I 
love  the  good  Quakers :  they  are  my  friends,  indeed ; " 
and  whoever  slandered  them  was  not  likely  to  advance 
in  his  favour. 

With  all  lie  got  Jenner  reckoned  himself  ill-paid ;  and 
taking  the  words  of  his  admirers  for  sinc°re,  he  was  ill- 
paid.  Many  a  successful  slayer  of  his  kind  had  much 
more  from  the  House  of  Commons  with  less  fuss  than 
their  ideal  preserver ;  but  there  is  often  a  measure  of 
sincerity  within  insincerity,  and  many  of  those  who 
praised  Jenner  most  rapturously  felt  that  he  had  not 
been  dealt  with  illiberally  as  the  advertiser  of  cowpox. 

Jenner's  wife  died  in  1815,  an  ailing,  pious,  affectionate 
woman,  and  thenceforth  he  dwelt  in  retirement  until  his 
death  on  the  26th  of  January,  1823,  at  the  age  of  seventy- 
four.  "  Never,"  he  wrote  to  his  friend  Gardner  on  13th 
January,  a  week  before  his  demise,  "Never  was  I  involved 
in  so  many  perplexities."  Hailed  with  acclamation  in 
1800-2  as  the  saviour  of  mankind  from  smallpox,  during 
the  remaining  twenty  years  of  his  life  he  underwent  a 
steady  course  of  discredit  as  failure  after  failure  was 
recorded  and  attested  against  vaccination.  Appropriate 
therefore  was  his  farewell  to  the  world  in  1823,  "  Never 
was  I  involved  in  so  many  perplexities."  There  was  not 
enthusiasm  left  to  effect  the  interment  of  his  remains  in 


THE  MEDICAL  POSITION  IN  1823.  363- 

Westminster  Abbey,  and  the  funeral  took  place  at 
Berkeley.  An  attempt  was  made  to  obtain  a  grant  from 
Parliament  for  a  monument,  but  the  proposal  fell  flat. 
Baron  then  set  on  foot  a  subscription  for  the  purpose, 
but  it  met  with  little  encouragement.  The  only  public 
bodies  which  contributed  anything  were  the  Edinburgh 
Colleges  of  Physicians  and  Surgeons,  the  first  sending 
£50  and  the  second  £10.  With  much  difficulty  sufficient 
was  scraped  together  to  order  a  statue  from  Sievier,  which 
was  set  up  at  the  west  end  of  the  nave  of  Gloucester 
Cathedral.  The  front  panel  of  the  pedestal  originally 
bore  the  dates  of  birth  and  death,  but  Baron  had  them 
removed,  considering  the  word  JENNER  all  significant. 

In  latter  times,  in  1859,  a  statue  was  erected  to  his 
memory  in  Trafalgar  Square,  London,  close  by  the  College 
of  Physicians,  but  it  was  felt  to  have  an  air  of  possible 
quackery  about  it,  and  by  and  bye  was  quietly  removed 
to  a  corner  in  Kensington  Gardens.  There  is,  as  I  have 
remarked,  a  measure  of  sincerity  even  in  insincerity ;  and 
it  is  impossible  for  any  one  with  a  lively  sense  of  veracity 
to  know  Edward  Jenner  and  entertain  for  him  any 
respect. 


CHAPTER    XXVII. 

THE   MEDICAL   POSITION    IN   1823. 

WHEN  Jenner  died  in  1823,  the  judgment  of  the  majority 
of  the  people  was  pronounced  against  cowpox  inoculation;, 
but  medical  men,  who  are  expected  to  know  something, 
and  do  something,  against  every  ailment,  rarely  surrender 
a  prescription  until  it  can  be  replaced  by  another.  The 
doctors  therefore  held  by  vaccination,  but  on  modified 
terms ;  and  the  position  to  which  they  had  been  reduced 
is  set  forth  in  an  article  in  the  Edinburgh  Review,  for 
November,  1822,  concerning  which  Jenner  wrote  to  Gard- 
ner, 13th  February,  1823,  a  week  before  his  death — 


364 


VACCINATION. 


I  have  an  attack  from  a  quarter  I  did  not  expect,  the  Edinburgh 
Revieiv.  These  people  understand  literature  better  than  physic. 
It  will  do  incalculable  mischief.  I  put  it  down  at  100,000  deaths 
at  least.  Never  was  I  involved  in  so  many  perplexities. 

What  an  extraordinary  article !  working  mischief  in- 
calculable, and  bad  for  at  least  one  hundred  thousand 
deaths  !  A  criticism  in  the  Quarterly  is  said  to  have 
killed  Keats,  upon  which  Byron  remarked — 

'Twas  strange  the  mind,  that  very  fiery  particle, 
Should  let  itself  be  snuffed  out  \>y  an  article. 

If,  however,  Jenner  was  right,  it  will  be  allowed,  I  think, 
that  the  murder  of  a  poet  was  exceeded  in  atrocity  by  the 
slaughter  of  at  least  one  hundred  thousand  ordinary  mor- 
tals. Wherefore,  to  discover  the  manner  of  the  great 
iniquity,  I  looked  up  the  Edinburgh  Review  and  dis- 
covered the  diabolical  article.  It  is  entitled  "Vaccination 
and  Smallpox";  is  obviously  written'uby  the  editor,  Jeffrey; 
and  the  rock  of  offence  was  at  once  apparent.  Doubt  is 
thrown  on  the  efficacy  of  vaccination  to  prevent  smallpox; 
•ergo,  vaccination  thus  discredited  will  be  neglected  ;  ergo, 
vaccination  thus  neglected  will  enlarge  the  domain  of 
smallpox ;  ergo,  at  least  one  hundred  thousand  persons 
will  perish.  Q.E.D.  But  it  will  be  asked,  "What  did 
Jeffrey  say  ?"  The  article  thus  opens — 

Vaccination,  we  are  perfectly  persuaded,  is  a  very  great  blessing 
to  mankind ;  but  not  quite  so  great  a  blessing,  nor  so  complete  a 
protection,  as  its  early  defenders  conceived  it  to  be.  The  proof  of 
this  has  been  admitted  with  great  reluctance ;  but  it  has  unfortu- 
nately become  too  strong  for  denial  or  resistance.  The  first  answers 
given  to  the  instances  of  failure,  with  which  the  friends  of  Vaccina- 
tion were  pressed,  were,  either  that  the  disease  which  had  occurred 
after  Vaccination  was  Chickenpox,  and  not  Smallpox ;  or  that  the 
process  of  Vaccination  had  been  unskilfully  or  imperfectly  con- 
ducted ;  or  that  it  was  one  of  those  very  rare  cases  which  occurred 
in  the  times  of  Inoculation,  and  from  which  Vaccination  itself  did 
not  pretend  to  be  wholly  exempt. 

The  Report  of  the  Vaccine  Pock  Institution  for  1803 
is  cited,  as  follows,  to  show  how  absolute  was  the  confi- 
dence in  vaccination  in  the  days  of  inexperience — 

We  have  been  alarmed  two  or  three  times  with  intelligence  of 
Smallpox  occurring  several  weeks  or  months  after  our  patients  had 


THE  MEDICAL  POSITION  IN  1823.  365 

undergone  the  Cowpox.  We  thought  it  our  duty  to  visit  and 
examine  these  patients,  and  also  to  inquire  into  their  history  among 
their  attendants,  and  by  these  means  we  obtained  the  completest 
satisfaction  that  the  pretended  Smallpox  was  generally  the  Chicken- 
pox. 

As  time  went  on,  cases  of  smallpox  after  vaccination 
kept  multiplying,  and  the  various  excuses  to  account  for 
their  occurrence,  though  obstinately  asserted,  utterly 
broke  down.  There  remained  no  doubt  whatever  that 
to  be  vaccinated  in  the  most  approved  fashion  afforded 
no  guarantee  against  smallpox.  In  1820,  said  Jeffrey, 
the  Board  of  the  National  Vaccine  Establishment  was 
compelled  to  make  the  following  melancholy  admis- 
sion— 

It  is  true  that  we  have  received  accounts  from  different  parts 
of  the  country  of  numerous  cases  of  Smallpox  having  occurred  after 
Vaccination  ;  and  we  cannot  doubt  that  the  prejudices  of  the  people 
against  this  preventive  expedient  are  assignable  (and  not  altogether 
unreasonably  perhaps)  to  this  cause.  These  cases  the  Board  has 
been  industriously  employed  in  investigating ;  and  though  it  ap- 
pears that  many  of  them  rest  only  on  hearsay  evidence,  and  that 
others  seem  to  have  undergone  the  Vaccine  Process  imperfectly 
some  years  since  when  it  was  less  well  understood,  and  practised  less 
skilfully  than  it  ought  to  be  ;  yet,  after  every  reasonable  deduction, 
we  are  compelled  to  allow  that  too  many  still  remain  on  undeni- 
able proof,  to  leave  any  doubt  that  the  pretensions  of  Vaccina- 
tion to  the  merit  of  a  perfect  and  exclusive  security  in  all  cases 
against  Smallpox,  were  admitted  at  first  too  unreservedly. 

The  significance  of  a  confession  like  the  foregoing  is 
not  to  be  estimated  literally.  It  was  exacted  under  irre- 
sistible pressure  of  facts,  numerous,  definite  and  undeni- 
able, after  every  method  of  excuse  and  prevarication  had 
been  exhausted.  In  short,  it  was  an  authoritative  retrac- 
tation of  the  flaming  medical  testimony  with  which 
vaccination  had  been  commended  to  the  public  in  1800, 
when  the  heads  of  the  profession  thought  it  their  duty 
to  declare  in  the  newspapers — 

That  those  persons  who  have  had  the  Cowpox  are  perfectly  secure 
from  the  future  infection  of  the  Smallpox. 

And  of  Jenner's  emphatic  assurance — 

That  the  human  frame,  when  once  it  has  felt  the  influence  of  the 


366  VACCINATION. 


genuine  Cowpox  is  never  afterwards,  at  any  period  of  its  existence, 
assailable  by  the  Smallpox. 

The  occasion  of  Jeffrey's  article  was  the  publication 
by  Dr.  John  Thomson  of  a  treatise  on  a  violent  epidemic 
in  Edinburgh,  and  other  parts  of  Scotland,  in  1818-19.* 
The  disease  differed  from  ordinary  smallpox  in  respect  of 
the  smallness  of  the  pustules,  which  contained  a  milky 
fluid,  and  began  to  dry  up  on  the  fourth  or  fifth  day.  In 
Thomson's  words — 

The  epidemic  appeared  to  exhibit  all  the  varieties  of  Smallpox 
from  the  mildest  to  the  most  malignant ;  and  it  was  curious  to 
observe  that  the  mildest  forms,  as  well  as  the  most  malignant, 
were  strictly  vesicular  eruptions,  in  which  scarcely  a  trace  of  puru- 
lent matter  was  to  be  seen  from  their  commencement  to  their  ter- 
mination. 

Whether  this  epidemic  was  smallpox  or  chickenpox, 
was  the  question.  It  was  chickenpox  said  some.  It  was 
modified  smallpox  said  others.  It  probably  was  chicken- 
pox  said  Thomson  ;  and  if  so,  he  argued,  chickenpox 
should  be  accounted  a  variety  of  smallpox.  The  chief 
cause  of  uncertainty  was,  that  the  vaccinated  constituted 
the  majority  of  sufferers — 

Had  the  unvaccinated  alone  been  attacked  [wrote  Thomson] , 
nothing,  it  appears  to  me,  but  the  most  unreasonable  scepticism 
could  ever  have  suggested  a  doubt  of  the  disease  being  genuine 
Smallpox. 

Thomson  reported  556  cases  in  Edinburgh  of  which — 

310  had  been  Vaccinated  ; 
41  had  had  Smallpox ;  and 
205  had  neither  been  Vaccinated  nor  had  Smallpox. 

And  William  Gibson,  surgeon  at  Kobert  Owen's  mills, 
New  Lanark,  had  322  cases,  of  which — 

251  had  been  Vaccinated. 

11  had  had  Smallpox,  spontaneous  or  inoculated. 
57  had  neither  been  Vaccinated  nor  had  Smallpox. 
3  had  had  Smallpox  and  Cowpox  simultaneously. 

*  An  Account,  of  the  Varioloid  Epidemic  ivhich  has  lately  prevailed  in 
Edinburgh  and  other  Parts  of  Scotland  ;  with  Observations  on  the  Identity 
of  Chickenpox  with  Modified  Smallpox.  By  John  Thomson,  M.D.  Lon- 
don, 1820.  Pp.  400. 


THE  MEDICAL  POSITION  IN  1823.  367 


As  is  usual  in  epidemics  of  smallpox,  it  was  the 
young  who  were  the  majority  of  sufferers;  Thomson 
saying — 

The  epidemic  has  been  observed  to  attack  those  chiefly  who  were 
under  ten  years  of  age  ;  increasing  years  appearing  in  general  to 
lessen  the  susceptibility  to  Smallpox  contagion. 

Thomson  supported  his  opinion  that  chickenpox  and 
smallpox  were  interchangeable  varieties  of  variola  with 
much  cogent  evidence  and  argument.  He  cited  instances 
in  which  they  occurred  together,  one  constitution  bring- 
ing forth  chickenpox  where  another  brought  forth 
smallpox,  whilst  the  infection  of  one  appeared  at  times 
in  the  manifestation  of  the  other.  The  controversy 
is  not  one  on  which  it  is  necessary  to  pronounce  judg- 
ment beyond  saying  that  the  whole  drift  of  philoso- 
phic pathology  is  now  in  Thomson's  favour ;  and  indeed 
at  the  time  he  wrote,  his  position  would  not  have  been 
seriously  contested,  save  for  the  discredit  it  accumulated 
upon  vaccination,  One  of  Thomson's  correspondents,  P. 
Mudie,  M.D.,  of  St.  Andrews,  stated  the  difficulty  with 
artless  force.  He  wrote,  18th  October,  1318 — 

Of  late  years  I  have  remarked,  that  the  disease  called  Chicken- 
pox  has  been  much  more  severe  than  formerly ;  and  many  of  the 
cases  occurring  after  Vaccination,  so  much  resembled  Smallpox, 
that  if  my  mind  had  not  been  prejudiced  against  the  possibility  of 
such  an  occurrence,  I  should  have  pronounced  the  eruption  to  have 
been  of  a  variolous  nature. 

Notwithstanding  his  experience,  Thomson  held  firmly 
by  vaccination.  Whilst  compelled  to  admit  that  it  did 
not  avert  either  form  of  variola,  he  maintained  with 
curious  fervour  that  it  made  the  disease  milder,  as  if  to 
excuse  his  partial  surrender  of  faith.  We  all  see  more  or 
less  according  to  our  prepossessions,  and  we  need  not 
blame  Thomson  if  with  his  perspicacity  he  was  unequal 
to  the  entire  truth.  The  vaccinated  belonged  to  classes 
who  were  better  housed,  better  fed,  and  better  cared  for 
than  the  unvaccinated ;  and  if  their  ailment  had  been 
measles  or  pneumonia  in  place  of  chickenpox,  they  would 
have  all  the  same  made  better  recoveries.  Precisely  the 


368  VACCINATION. 

same  error  is  made  at  this  day :  what  is  due  to  kindlier 
conditions  of  life  is  ascribed  to  vaccination. 

Some  tried  to  account  for  the  manifest  failure  of.  vac- 
cination on  the  supposition  that  the  original  virus  had 
lost  its  force  in  transmission  from  arm  to  arm,  but 
Thomson  would  not  allow  that  it  had  deteriorated.  He 
said — 

The  Vaccine  Virus  used  in  Edinburgh  for  a  series  of  eighteen 
years  produces  exactly  the  same  appearances  as  are  delineated  by 
Dr.  Jenner  as  characteristic  of  Cowpox.  I  know,  also,  that  the 
appearances  of  the  vaccine  vesicle  produced  by  this  matter,  which 
must  have  passed  through  a  succession  of  at  least  900  individuals, 
agree  exactly  with  those  exhibited  by  vesicles  produced  by  inocula- 
tion, with  the  more  recent  equine  matter  with  which  I  have  been 
lately  favoured  by  Dr.  Jenner. 

The  latter  words  are  noteworthy.  When  Jenner's 
ascription  of  the  origin  of  Cowpox  in  Horsegrease  is 
referred  to,  the  answer  frequently  is,  that  Jenner  was 
mistaken,  and  that  he  did  not  persist  in  his  opinion.  It 
is  true  that  he  did  preserve  a  judicious  silence  about 
horsegrease  when  he  saw  that  it  would  mar  rather  than 
make  his  fortune.  But  when  he  obtained  all  he  was 
likely  to  get,  he  resumed  the  expression  of  his  original 
opinion,  and  used  and  diffused  what  he  described  as  horse- 
grease  ;  and  the  vesicles  raised  by  the  virus,  and  the  cica- 
trices which  remained  were  identical  with  those  induced 
by  so-called  Cowpox. 

Another  point  developed  in  Thomson's  evidence  was 
the  mistake  made  crediting  vaccination  with  the  preven- 
tion of  smallpox  where  there  was  no  smallpox  to  pre- 
vent. The  victories  ascribed  to  vaccination  were  victories 
either  over  an  imaginary  or  a  retreating  enemy.  We 
cannot  too  firmly  insist  upon  this  point  in  presence  of  the 
claim  continually  advanced  for  the  subjugation  of  small- 
pox by  vaccination.  For  some  cause  undefined,  and, 
probably  in  its  full  extent,  undiscoverable,  a  subsidence 
of  smallpox  over  the  whole  of  Europe  set  in  toward  the 
close  of  last  century,  and  continued  during  the  early 
years  of  the  present ;  and  to  this  subsidence  the  favour 


THE  MEDICAL  POSITION  IX  1823.  369 

that  vaccination  met  with  was  largely  due.  The  decline 
in  the  disease  concurrently  with  the  introduction  of  vac- 
cination, was  ascribed  to  vaccination,  although  the  decline 
prevailed  among  an  overwhelming  majority  who  had 
never  received  vaccination.  To  make  good  the  claim  for 
vaccination  it  would  have  been  necessary  to  maintain 
that  the  vaccine  rite,  as  applied  to  2  or  3  per  cent,  of 
Europeans,  effected  the  salvation  of  98  or  97  per  cent. 
For  example,  a  great  point  was  made  by  Jenner  and  his 
friends  of  the  extinction  of  smallpox  in  Vienna,  according 
to  the  following  table — 

FROM 
YEARS.  TOTAL  DEATHS.          SMALLPOX. 

1791-1800  average  14,600  ...  835  or  one  in  m 

1801  ...  15,181  ...  164          ...  93 

1802  ...  14,522  ...  61          ...  238 

1803  ...  14,383  ...  27          ...  532 

1804  ...  14,035  ...  2          ...  7,017 

Yet  it  was  never  pretended  that  in  these  years  more  than 
a  fraction  of  the  Viennese  were  vaccinated,  or  that  the 
death-rate  of  the  city  was  reduced  by  the  disappearance 
of  smallpox.  The  like  fatuity  characterised  the  whole  of 
the  vaccinators'  statistics.  Smallpox  had  declined,  there- 
fore, they  argued,  vaccination  is  the  cause  of  the  decline, 
and  multitudes  were  convinced  by  the  illicit  logic.  When 
vaccination  was,  however,  brought  to  the  test  of  epidemic 
smallpox,  its  inefficacy  became  manifest,  and  thus  Thom- 
son had  to  avow,  as  the  result  of  his  experience  in  the 
Edinburgh  epidemic  of  1818-19— 

It  is  to  the  severity  of  this  epidemic,  I  am  convinced,  that  we 
ought  to  attribute  the  greatness  of  the  number  of  the  vaccinated 
who  have  been  attacked  by  it,  and  not  to  any  deterioration  in  the 
qualities  of  the  Cowpox  Virus,  or  to  any  defects  in  the  manner  in 
which  it  has  been  employed.  Had  a  variolous  constitution  of  the 
atmosphere,  similar  to  that  which  we  have  lately  experienced, 
existed  at  the  time  Dr.  Jenner  brought  forward  his  discovery,  it 
may  be  doubted  whether  it  ever  could  have  obtained  the  confidence 
of  the  public. 

Such  was  the  article  which  Jenner  "  put  down  for 
100,000  deaths  at  least."     Yet  neither  Jeffrey  nor  Thom- 

24 


370  VACCINATION. 


son  renounced  vaccination.  They  agreed  that  whilst  it 
could  no  longer  be  trusted  to  prevent  smallpox,  it  made 
the  disease  milder  in  those  it  attacked.  When  a  cherished 
belief  is  surrendered,  it  is  rarely  unconditionally :  it  is 
only  by  degrees  that  full  concession  is  made  unto  truth. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

INTRODUCTION  OF  VACCINATION  TO  THE  UNITED  STATES. 

LEAVING  England  for  awhile,  let  us  see  how  it  fared  with 
vaccination  in  some  other  countries. 

As  before  observed,  the  introduction  of  vaccination  to 
practice  is  sometimes  described  as  having  been  a  labour 
of  difficulty,  a  strife  with  prejudice,  a  victory  of  light  over 
darkness ;  but  there  was  nothing  in  reality  answering  to 
such  magniloquence.  The  battle  was  won  for  vaccination 
by  variolation,  for  which  it  was  exhibited  as  a  harmless 
and  more  efficient  substitute.  Unless  the  entrance  of 
vaccination  into  the  place  of  variolation  be  recognised,  its 
quick  and  easy  triumph  is  inexplicable.  A  novelty  that 
King  George  and  Queen  Charlotte,  the  Prince  of  Wales, 
and  the  Royal  Dukes  accepted  without  hesitation  or  re- 
serve, could  not  in  the  nature  of  things  have  required  the 
exercise  of  much  intelligence.  Any  serious  resistance 
proceeded  from  the  variolators,  who  considered  their 
craft  in  danger  when  parsons,  women,  and  tradesmen 
were  approved  of  as  vaccinators  by  Jenner  himself.  Such 
opposition  to  vaccination  as  is  common  at  this  day  wras 
not  possible  in  the  early  years  of  the  present  century. 
We  know  that  health  is  the  best  defence  of  health,  and 
that  illness  is  proof  of  ill-living ;  but,  to  our  forefathers, 
illness  was  a  mysterious  dispensation  to  be  encountered 
with  submission,  relieved  by  prescriptions,  magical  and 


INTRODUCTION  TO  THE  UNITED  STATES.  371 

natural.  Hence  not  only  dull  Royalty  was  involved  in 
the  cowpox  craze,  but  men  of  science  like  Davy,  Wollas- 
ton,  and  Darwin,  with  the  whole  troop  of  men  of  letters, 
of  whom  Sir  Walter  Scott  may  be  taken  for  spokesman. 
Describing  Queen  Caroline  in  "  The  Heart  of  Midlothian," 
he  says — 

The  lady  had  remarkably  good  features,  though  somewhat  in- 
jured by  Smallpox,  that  venomous  scourge,  which  each  village 
^Esculapius  (thanks  to  Jenner)  can  now  tame  as  easily  as  his  tute- 
lary deity  tamed  the  Python. 

For  credulity  thus  expressed  there  was  large  excuse. 
What  else,  indeed,  could  one  in  Scott's  position  have  been 
expected  to  believe  ?  It  was  only  through  the  hard  dis- 
enchantment of  experience  that  vaccination  did  not  pre- 
vent smallpox,  nor  mitigate  its  severity,  nor  was  in  itself 
harmless,  that  the  early  delirium  abated,  and  a  less  rabid 
persuasion  supervened. 

The  wave  of  conviction  spread  from  England  over  the 
world,  and  nowhere  was  the  substitution  of  vaccination 
for  variolation  welcomed  more  enthusiastically  than  in 
New  England.  As  Boston  led  the  way  in  1721  in  the 
practice  of  smallpox  inoculation,  so  from  Boston  in  1800 
was  announced  the  project  for  the  extermination  of 
smallpox  by  cowpox.  But  ere  advancing  farther,  it  may 
be  well  to  say  a  word  about  Boston  smallpox. 

Boston  was  an  extremely  unhealthy  town.  For  fifty 
years,  from  1701  to  1750,  the  births  were  exceeded  by 
the  deaths.  In  a  population  of  about  15,000,  the  annual 
death  rate  ranged  from  30  to  70  per  thousand.  There 
were  epidemics  of  fever  and  of  smallpox;  the  latter 
occurring  in  general  at  intervals  of  ten  years,  when  large 
numbers  died,  the  smallpox  as  usual  displacing  other 
forms  of  fever,  but  nevertheless  raising  the  mortality  of 
the  year.  The  most  deadly  outbreak  of  smallpox  was 
that  of  1721,  the  year  in  which  Cotton  Mather  and 
Zabdiel  Boylston  introduced  variolation.  The  mortality 
of  that  year  was  1102,  of  which  884  were  ascribed  to 
smallpox.  In  1752  there  was  an  extraordinary  epidemic, 
but  how  much  of  its  prevalence  was  due  to  circumstance 


372  VACCINATION. 


and  how  much  to  contrivance,  it  is  impossible  to  di\7ine- 
Here  are  the  figures,  which  are  of  singular  interest  — 
BOSTON  in  1752.     Population  15,684. 


w  Died  in  conse- 

VaSSed. 


Whites,         5060  470  1985  24 

Blacks,  485  69  139  6 

Total,         5545  539  2124  30 

Fled  from  Had  neither  Had  Smallpox 

Boston  for  Smallpox  by  either  by 

safety.  nature  or  art.  nature  or  art. 

1843  174  5998 

Under  these  heads  the  entire  population  of  15,684  was 
accounted  for,  with  the  important  exception  of  the 
discrimination  of  the  5998,  whose  immunity  was  pre- 
supposed, into  subjects  of  induced  and  spontaneous  small- 
pox. The  deaths,  569,  were  less  numerous  than  in  1721, 
when  884  died,  but  the  disease  was  more  widely  diffused, 
upwards  of  one-third  of  the  inhabitants,  5545,  being 
attacked.  The  epidemic  exhausted  itself  within  four 
months,  the  record  standing  thus — 

January,  died,       -         -         II    June,          died,       -     203 
February,  „  -         -         2    j    July,  ,,          -       31 

March,        ,,  2    |    August,          ,,          -         5 

April,          ,,  -     119        September,    ,,          -         1 

May,  „          -        -     205 

569 

The  diffusion  of  the  epidemic  was  largely  due  to  the 
extensive  variolation  that  went  on,  no  fewer  than  2124 
having  been  inoculated  in  the  panic,  and  they  moving 
freely  about  in  the  assurance  of  safety,  spread  the  dis- 
temper on  every  side.  For  every  five  who  had  the 
smallpox,  so  to  say,  naturally,  two  had  it  artificially,  and 
the  one  sort  was  almost  as  "  catching  "  as  the  other.  It 
was  an  instance  of  a  community  (excepting  the  1843 
who  fled)  rushing  into  smallpox  to  escape  from  smallpox. 
The  deaths  of  24  Whites  and  6  Blacks  from  variolation 
gave  rise  to  much  concern,  and  by  some  they  were  spoken 
of  as  so  many  murders.  Against  this  fatality  was,  how- 


INTRODUCTION  TO  THE  UNITED  STATES.  373 

ever,  set  the  low  death  rate  of  the  regular  sufferers,  539  out 
of  5545,  or  less  than  1  in  10.  The  Rev.  T.  Prince,  who 
communicated  an  account  of  the  epidemic  to  the  Gentle- 
man's Magazine  for  1753,  p.  413,  was  puzzled  to  account 
for  the  variation  from  the  London  standard — 

Dr.  Jurin  computes  that  there  generally  die  in  London  in  the 
natural  way  2  in  11  or  18  in  the  100 ;  but  in  Boston  we  see  that 
not  more  than  1  in  10  died ;  whilst  in  the  inoculated  way  the  deaths 
were  more  numerous  than  is  commonly  allowed.  What  were  the 
natural  caus_es,  under  their  Divine  Director,  of  Smallpox  in  the 
natural  way  being  less  mortal  in  Boston  than  in  London,  and  more 
mortal  in  Boston  than  in  London  in  the  inoculated  way,  may  be 
worthy  of  our  humble  inquiries. 

The  difference  was  broader  than  Prince  perceived.  An 
outbreak  of  smallpox  in  which  a  third  of  the  population 
was  affected  never  occurred  in  London,  and  a  mortality 
proportionate  with  that  of  Boston  among  a  third  of  the 
Londoners  would  have  appeared  like  a  recurrence  of  the 
Plague.  I  am  in  nowise  concerned  to  minimise  the 
ravages  of  smallpox  when  conditions  are  prepared,  as  of 
design,  for  its  development;  but  I  do  insist,  on  their 
accurate  definition.  Boston  suffered  severely,  but  was 
by  no  means  "  decimated " — the  invariable  rhetorical 
phrase.  The  deaths  were  at  the  rate  of  1  in  27,  and,  as 
observed,  smallpox  replaced  other  forms  of  fever.  The 
539  deaths  from  smallpox  were  not  extra  deaths ;  the 
excess  was  less  than  half  that  number,  and  might  fairly 
be  attributed  to  the  extraordinary  energy  displayed  in 
propagating  the  disease  by  inoculation. 

Spite  of  such  adverse  experience,  variolation  continued 
to  be  a  common,  though  intermittent,  practice  in  America, 
and  especially  in  New  England,  where  the  habit  of  doc- 
toring for  the  cure  of  present  ailments,  and  the  prevention 
of  anticipated  ones,  was  established  and  inveterate.  In 
Boston  the  practice  became  systematised,  and  the  inocu- 
lated were  confined  for  three  weeks  to  an  hospital  situated 
on  a  promontory  in  the  Charles  River,  where  they  were 
treated  as  veritable  centres  of  infection — a  course  widely 
different  from  that  pursued  in  the  epidemic  of  1752. 
Nevertheless,  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  smallpox  was 


374  VACCINATION. 


ever  endemic  in  New  England  as  it  was  in  London. 
Dr.  Waterhouse  writing  in  1787  observed — 

I  do  not  believe  there  is  at  present  a  single  person  infected  by 
Smallpox  in  all  the  four  New  England  Governments,  that  is,  not 
one  in  a  million  of  people. 

The  disease  broke  out  now  and  then,  and  was  always 
traced  to  some  wayfarer,  or  ship,  or  parcel  of  goods — 
never  to  bad  drainage,  or  no  drainage,  or  the  stenches 
that  pervaded  the  domestic  interiors  of  last  century, 
whether  in  America  or  Europe.  In  this  matter,  the 
exercise  of  a  little  imagination  is  requisite  to  realise  the 
historic  facts :  they  are  disagreeable  ;  but  if  people  will 
insist  on  comparing  the  smallpox  of  the  18th  century 
with  that  of  the  19th,  it  may  become  necessary  to  be 
explicit  as  to  certain  domestic  details  concerning  which 
there  is  a  conventional  reserve. 

It  was  by  Dr.  Benjamin  Waterhouse,  Professor  of  the 
Theory  and  Practice  of  Physic  in  the  University  of  Cam- 
bridge, Massachusetts,  that  vaccination  was  introduced 
to  America.  He  described  the  new  rite  in  the  Columbian 
Centinel  of  12th  March,  1799,  as  "Something  Curious  in 
the  Medical  Line";  and  formally  promulgated  the  novelty 
a  year  afterwards  in  a  pamphlet  thus  entitled — 

A  Prospect  of  Exterminating  the  Smallpox;  being  tlie  History 
of  the  Variolce  Vaccines,  or  Kine-Pox,  commonly  called  the  Cow- 
pox,  as  it  has  appeared  in  England  :  with  an  Account  of  a  Series 
of  Inoculations  performed  for  the  Kine-Pox  in  Massachusetts. 
Printed  for  the  Author  at  the  Cambridge  Press  by  William  Hilliard 
and  sold  by  him  and  other  Booksellers  in  Boston.  1800. 

Kine-Pox!  Why  Kine-Pox?  The  reason  is  stated  by 
the  Doctor — 

From  kine  the  plural  of  cow ;  thus  in  the  Scriptures,  "And  they 
took  two  milch-kine,  and  shut  up  their  calves  at  home  ";  a  word 
equally  expressive,  and,  in  the  opinion  of  some,  more  delicate. 

There  we  have  it :  More  delicate !  If  it  had  been 
bull-pox  the  objection  might  have  been  insuperable. 
Writing  to  Jenner,  24th  April,  1801,  Waterhouse  says — 

Could  you  believe  that  not  a  single  inoculation  with  Cowpox  has 
yet  been  effected  in  Philadelphia?  It  seems  that  the  leading 


INTRODUCTION  TO  THE  UNITED  STATES.  375 

physician  there  pronounces  it  too  beastly  and  indelicate  for  polished 
society.* 

The  pamphlet  on  Kine-Pox  set  forth  the  mystery  of 
the  new  inoculation  as  received  from  England  with  a 
significant  omission — there  was  not  a  word  in  it  about 
Horsegrease !  Waterhouse  was  in  correspondence  with 
Pearson,  and  Pearson  may  have  told  him  how  not  only 
the  asserted  generation  of  Cowpox  in  Horsegrease  was 
discredited,  but  "how  it  was  like  to  damn  the  whole 
thing  ";  which  might  have  been  true  enough,  but  if  true, 
Where  then  stood  Jenner  ?  He  knew  that  cowpox  did 
not  prevent  smallpox:  the  fact  was  notorious  among 
the  medical  men  in  cowpox  districts :  and  he  had  ex- 
pressly pledged  his  faith  in  the  Inquiry  to  Cowpox 
begotten  from  Horsegrease  and  to  nothing  else.  But 
Horsegrease  Cowpox  did  not  suit  the  market,  and  it  was 
withdrawn  with  Jenner's  tacit  assent,  and  spontaneous 
Cowpox  advanced  in  its  stead,  and  accepted  as  Jenner's 
veritable  discovery.  It  might  be  good  business  to  drop 
the  horse  out  of  the  case,  but  what  was  it  else  ? 

Cowpox,  testified  Waterhouse,  was  unknown  in  New 
England,  but  he  received  the  revelation  concerning  it  at 
once — but  not,  be  it  repeated,  Jenner's  revelation :  that 
he  suppressed.  He  had  long  suspected  that  smallpox 
was  communicated  from  brutes  to  the  human  race ;  and 
now  his  suspicion  was  confirmed.  And,  such  being  the 
origin  of  variola,  it  seemed  to  him  not  unreasonable  that 
the  disease  as  it  existed  in  a  mild  form  in  kine  might  be 
used  for  inoculation  with  all  the  advantages  pertaining 
to  smallpox,  whilst  attended  with  neither  injury  to  the 
inoculated,  nor  with  risk  of  infection  to  those  about 
them — 

What  makes  this  newly  discovered*  disease  so  very  curious,  and 
so  extremely  important  is,  that  every  person  thus  affected,  is  ever 
after  secured  from  the  ordinary  Smallpox,  let  him  be  ever  so  much 
exposed  to  the  effect  of  it,  or  let  ever  so  much  ripe  Smallpox  matter 
be  inserted  into  the  skin  by  inoculation.  In  other  words,  a  person 


Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  i.  p.  442. 


376  VACCINATION. 


who  lias  undergone  the  local  disease  and  specific  fever  occasioned 
by  the  Cowpox  Infection  is  thereby  rendered  ever  after  insusceptible 
of  the  Smallpox. 

How  incautious,  to  say  the  least,  was  the  acceptance 
of  this  prophecy  of  perpetual  security !  With  less  than 
three  years'  experience  an  absolute  prediction  was  de- 
livered, received,  and  repeated  over  the  whole  earth  as 
if  by  parrots.  Such,  however,  is  the  habit  of  mankind 
when  possessed  by  a  strong  delusion. 

Injustice  to  Waterhouse  it  has  to  be  said  that  he  did 
not  commit  himself  openly  until  he  had  gone  through 
the  illusory  experiments  that  were  then  fashionable  in 
England.  He  had  much  difficulty  in  obtaining  a  supply 
of  active  virus.  Several  remittances  failed,  but  at  last 
he  had  one,  an  inch  and  a-half  of  infected  thread,  from 
Dr.  Haygarth  which  proved,  it  was  thought,  effective.* 
His  first  patient  was  his  son,  Daniel  Oliver,  aged  five ; 
then  another  child  aged  three ;  then  a  servant  lad  aged 
twelve ;  then  a  weaned  infant  of  one  year — all  five  suc- 
cessful, whilst  two  domestics  failed  "to  take" — seven 
experiments  in  his  own  household.  Then  he  had  the 
children  taken  to  the  Smallpox  Hospital,  where  they 
were  inoculated  by  Dr.  Aspinwall,  and  issuing  scatheless 
from  the  test,  the  truth  was  taken  as  demonstrated,  and 
there  was  no  need  for  further  hesitation.  Four  gentle- 
men, including  a  physican,  offered  themselves  for  public 
encouragement — 

One  of  them  [says  Waterhouse]  chose  to  live  pretty  freely  by 
way  of  experiment,  and  the  febrile  symptoms,  especially  headache, 
were  full  as  much  as  he  could  bear  and  walk  about  with.  This 
convinced  me  that  the  Kine-Pox  was  a  disease  not  to  be  trifled 
with. 

Waterhouse  then  appealed  to  the  pride  of  his  country- 
men— 

*  "It  was  Dr.  Lettsom  who  first  sent  the  Vaccine  Lymph  across  the 
Atlantic,  and  consigned  it  to  the  fostering  care  of  his  friend  Dr.  Water- 
house." — Pettigrew's  Life  of  Lettsom,  vol.  i.  p.  121.  "Dr.  Waterhouse 
at  length  succeeded  in  getting  some  Cowpox  matter  from  Dr.  Haygarth 
of  Bath,  who  forwarded  it  from  Bristol." — Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  i. 
p.  386. 


INTRODUCTION  TO  THE  UNITED  STATES. 


377 


The  people  of  New  England,  particularly  of  Boston,  set  a  noble 
example  to  their  elder  brethren  of  Old  England,  in  adopting  the 
Turkish  practice  of  Inoculation  for  the  Smallpox  in  1721.  Now 
the  English  in  their  turn,  lead  the  way  in  a  practice  still  more 
salutiferous.  For  though  the  Inoculation  which  commenced  here 
in  1721,  stripped  that  horrid  disease,  the  Smallpox,  of  more  than 
half  its  terrors,  yet  it  is  the  Kine-Pox  that  will  effect  its  exter- 
mination. 

Following  this  prophecy  came  a  frank  request  for 
business — 

Dr.  Waterhouse  informs  those  who  have  applied  to  him  out  of 
Cambridge  to  inoculate  their  families  that  he  declined  it  only  until 
the  disorder  had  gone  fairly  through  his  own  family,  and  until  some 
of  them  had  been  inoculated  by  Dr.  Aspiiiwall,  and  otherwise  ex- 
posed to  Smallpox.  But  having  now  confirmed  his  assertion,  that 
the  Kine-Pox  protects  the  constitution  from  the  infection  of 
Smallpox  by  a  fair  experiment,  he  is  ready  to  attend  them  when- 
ever they  choose.  Those  who  live  in  Boston  may  rest  assured  that 
from  the  proximity  of  his  residence  to  the  capital,  he  shall  make 
such  arrangements  as  to  be  able  to  attend  them  as  punctually  as  if 
he  resided  there. — CAMBRIDGE,  18th  August,  1800. 

After  an  English  pattern  he  published  the  following 
table— 


INOCULATED  SMALLPOX. 
Contagious. 

One  in  300  dies. 
It  is  like  crossing  the 
stream  in  an  old, 
leaky  boat,  where 
one  in  300  perishes. 


KINK-POCK. 

Non-Contagious.    Never 
fatal. 

It  is  like  crossing 
the  stream  on  a  new 
and  safe  bridge. 


NATURAL  SMALLPOX. 
A  Contagious  Disease. 

One  in  6  who  take 
it  dies.  It  is  like 
an  attempt  to  cross 
a  dangerous  stream 
by  swimming,  where 
one  in  six  perishes. 

The  operations,  so  hopefully  begun,  came  speedily  to 
grief.  In  a  letter  addressed  by  Waterhouse  to  Jenner, 
24th  April,  1801,  we  read- 
One  inch  and  a-half  of  infected  thread  from  Dr.  Hay  garth  was 
the  whole  stock  from  whence  perhaps  3000  persons  have  been  in- 
oculated, but  I  fear  tlie  greatest  part  of  them  have  been  spurious. 
I  gave  out  that  the  winter  was  an  unfavourable  season  for  this  new 
inoculation,  and  by  that  means  I  suspended  the  practice  throughout 
the  country  until  the  arrival  of  fresh  matter  and  your  letter.  Now 
we  are  going  on  again,  but  not  with  the  faith  and  spirit  of  the  last 
season.  Some  unlucky  cases  have  damped  the  ardour  of  a  people 
who  received  this  new  inoculation  with  a  candour,  liberality, 


378  VACCINATION. 


and  even  generosity,  much  to  their  credit.  The  first  political 
and  literary  characters  in  our  nation  are  still  warm  advocates  for 
the  practice.* 

Waterhouse  continued  to  correspond  with  Jenner,  and 
was  regarded  as  his  accredited  representative  in  New 
England.  Writing  to  Dr.  Lettsom,  16th  November,  1802, 
he  says — 

Dr.  Jenner  has  just  sent  me  a  present  I  highly  prize — a  silver 
box  inlaid  with  gold  of  exquisite  taste  and  workmanship,  bearing 
this  inscription — 

EDWARD  JENNER  to  BENJAMIN  WATERHOUSE. 

But  Mr.  Eing  annexed  the  superscription  in  rather  an  hyper- 
bolical style — 

From  THE  JENNER  of  THE  OLD  WORLD 

To  THE  JENNER  of  THE  NEW  WORLD. 

Long  will  it  remain  among  the  sacras  relictae  of  my  family,  f 

Waterhouse  was  a  man  of  an  ingenious  turn  of  mind. 
When  troubled  with  ill-results  from  his  operations  at  the 
end  of  1800,  he  tried  what  has  since  been  called  retro- 
vaccination,  probably  for  the  first  time.  Here  are  his 
words  from  his  letter  to  Jenner,  24th  April,  1801 — 

I  inoculated  one  of  my  cows  with  the  Vaccine  Virus,  and  obtained 
from  her  a  crop  of  matter  on  the  ninth  day,  which  produced  the 
disease  in  the  human  subject  to  perfection.  Is  this  experiment 
known  among  you  ?  As  I  operated  myself  there  was  no  avenue 
opened  for  deception  in  the  whole  experiment. 

A  sentence  which  follows  is  too  characteristic  to  be 
passed  over.  Says  Waterhouse — 

I  have  invariably  found  that  weakly  children  have  been  bene- 
fited by  the  Vaccine  Inoculation,  and  some  it  has  cured  of  the 
Hooping  Cough. 

And  this  after  less  than  twelve  months'  experience ! 
Waterhouse  had  also  to  relate  a  case  of  cows  having 
smallpox — 

At  one  of  our  periodical  inoculations,  which  occur  in  New  Eng- 

*  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  i.  p.  440. 

t  Pettigrew's  Life  of  Lettsom,  vol.  iii.  p.  405. 


INTRODUCTION  TO  THE  UNITED  STATES.  37$ 

land  once  in  eight  or  nine  years,*  several  farmers  drove  their  cows 
to  an  hospital  near  a  populous  village,  that  the  patients  might  have 
the  benefit  of  their  milk.  The  cows  were  milked  by  persons  in  all 
stages  of  Smallpox ;  and  in  consequence  they  had  an  eruptive  dis- 
order on  their  teats  and  udders  that  every  one  in  the  hospital,  as 
well  as  the  physician  who  told  me,  declared  was  Smallpox.  Since 
Cowpox  has  been  talked  of,  this  account  has  been  revived  and 
credited.  Have  you  found  anything  like  it  in  England  ? 

Waterhouse  had  inquiries  from  Virginia,  and  wished 
Jenner  to  let  him  have,  if  possible,  a  picture  of  the 
vaccine  vesicle  on  the  negro — 

Could  I  procure  two  or  three  coloured  plates,  delineating  the 
appearances  on  the  skin  of  the  negro,  I  would  send  them  into  such 
of  our  Southern  States  as  are  blackened  by  these  degraded  beings. 

"  Some  in  this  country,  as  well  as  in  England,"  ob- 
served Waterhouse,  "  having  had  all  their  objections  to 
Kine-Pox  obviated,  persist  in  asking,  'Who  can  tell  what 
may  be  the  consequences  in  the  lapse  of  years  of  intro- 
ducing a  bestial  humour  into  the  human  frame  ? '  I 
answer  them  as  does  Mr.  Ring  with  a  spirit  and  wit 
worthy  of  Franklin,  '  Who  can  tell  what  may  be  the 
consequences  in  the  lapse  of  years  of  introducing  milk, 
beef  steaks,  or  mutton  chops,  into  the  human  frame  ?'" 

The  pertinacity  with  which  this  "  wit "  was  employed 
by  the  early  vaccinators  leads  us  to  suppose  that  they 
found  it  effective;  but  was  ever  argument  by  analogy 
more  absurdly  misapplied  ?  Milk  or  steaks  from  a  cow, 
or  chops  from  a  sheep  known  to  be  suffering  from  pox 
would  be  rejected  with  loathing ;  nor  was  it  ever  pro- 
posed to  cook  and  eat  cowpox ;  and  yet  corruption,  mere 
association  with  which,  would  render  milk,  or  steaks,  or 
chops  loathsome,  it  was  not  thought  abominable  to  infuse 
into  the  blood ! 

"  The  first  political  and  literary  characters  in  our  na- 
tion are  warm  advocates  of  the  practice,"  said  Water- 
house  ;  and  it  was  so.  President  Adams  was  quite  of  a 

*  As  Dimsdale  advised,  the  inhabitants  of  a  village  or  district  were 
inoculated  with  Smallpox  simultaneously,  so  that  all  being  infected 
none  should  be  unwillingly  infected  ! 


380  VACCINATION. 


mind  with  King  George  in  that  respect ;  and  Jefferson 
not  only  approved  of  the  practice  in  common  with  Queen 
Charlotte,  but,  as  soon  as  he  could  obtain  virus,  set  to 
work  with  his  sons-in-law,  and  vaccinated  their  families 
and  neighbours  to  the  number  of  two  hundred.  There 
is  a  letter  from  Jefferson  to  Jenner  in  1806,  which  is 
remarkable  as  an  absolute  confession  of  faith  at  a  date 
when  much  had  occurred  to  shake  faith.  The  President 
wrote — 

MONTICELLO,  VIRGINIA,  14th  May,  1806. 

SIR, — I  have  received  the  copy  of  the  evidence  at  large  respect- 
ing the  discovery  of  the  Vaccine  Inoculation,  which  you  have  been 
pleased  to  send  me,  and  for  which  I  return  you  my  thanks.  Hav- 
ing been  among  the  early  converts  in  this  part  of  the  globe  to 
its  efficacy,  I  took  an  early  part  in  recommending  it  to  my  coun- 
trymen. I  avail  myself  of  this  occasion  to  render  to  you  my  por- 
tion of  the  tribute  of  gratitude  due  to  you  from  the  whole  human 
family.  Medicine  has  never  before  produced  any  single  improve- 
ment of  such  utility.  Harvey's  discovery  of  the  circulation  of  the 
blood  was  a  beautiful  addition  to  our  knowledge  of  the  animal 
economy ;  but  on  a  review  of  the  practice  of  medicine  before  and 
since  that  epoch,  I  do  not  see  any  great  amelioration  which  has 
been  derived  from  that  discovery.  You  have  erased  from  the 
calendar  of  human  afflictions  one  of  its  greatest.  Yours  is  the  com- 
fortable reflection  that  mankind  can  never  forget  that  you  have 
lived.  Future  nations  will  know  by  history  only  that  the  loathsome 
Smallpox  has  existed,  and  by  you  has  been  extirpated.  Accept 
the  most  fervent  wishes  for  your  health  and  happiness,  and  assur- 
ances of  the  greatest  respect  and  consideration. 

TH.  JEFFERSON. 

That  smallpox  should  be  erased  from  the  calendar  of 
human  afflictions,  and  be  known  only  in  history  as  ex- 
tirpated by  Jenner,  were  vain  expectations;  but  to 
recognise  their  vanity  did  not  lie  within  Jefferson's  possi- 
bilities. He  had  been  bred  in  the  belief  that  inoculation 
with  smallpox  prevented  smallpox,  and  it  came  forth  as 
a  corollary,  that  as  cowpox  was  an  equivalent  for  small- 
pox, if  all  were  cowpoxed,  the  disease  must  be  extirpated. 
His  expectations,  therefore,  were  not  without  plausibility. 
Nor  was  it  possible  for  Jefferson  in  the  light  of  his  time 
to  see  that  smallpox  was  no  specific  entity  that  could  be 
got  rid  of  per  se  whilst  all  else  remained  unaffected.  We 


INTRODUCTION  TO  THE  UNITED  STATES.  381 

know  that  if  even  vaccination  made  an  end  of  smallpox, 
and  did  no  harm  of  itself,  we  should  reduce  neither  ill- 
ness nor  mortality  (supposing  no  other  change  in  the  con- 
ditions of  existence  were  effected),  but  should  have  our 
due  allotment  of  disease  in  other  forms.  To  attack  small- 
pox as  smallpox,  and  suppose  that  if  suppressed  we  should 
be  in  anywise  advantaged,  is  mere  illusion.  Zymotic 
diseases,  to  be  dealt  with  effectually,  must  be  dealt  with 
as  forms  of  a  common  malady ;  to  get  rid  of  one,  we  must 
get  rid  of  all ;  and  with  a  graver  sense  of  the  difficulties 
to  be  encountered  we,  too,  believe  with  Jefferson,  that 
smallpox  may  be  extirpated,  but  in  company  with  much 
else,  and  by  practice  that  has  no  affinity  with  the  crea- 
tion of  disease  implied  in  vaccination. 

Of  all  people  the  English  are  most  abandoned  to  medi- 
cal quackery,  said  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu;  and  the 
English  characteristic  was  reproduced  and  exaggerated 
in  New  England.  The  first  resistance  to  vaccination  being* 
overcome,  there  was  a  run  upon  the  practice — 

The  zeal  of  American  medical  men  [says  Baron]  was  excited  to 
an  unparalleled  degree  ;  but,  unfortunately,  their  discretion  did  not 
keep  pace  with  it.  They  disregarded  the  cautions  of  Dr.  Water- 
house,  and  paid  no  attention  either  to  the  state  of  the  matter  with 
which  they  inoculated,  or  to  the  progress  of  the  pustule.  It  appears, 
likewise,  that  the  cupidity  of  persons  not  of  the  medical  profession 
was  stimulated,  and  the  manner  in  which  they  carried  on  their 
traffic  was  alike  indicative  of  their  avarice  and  their  ignorance. 
The  followers  of  this  trade  obtained  the  shirt-sleeves  of  patients 
which  had  been  stiffened  by  the  purulent  discharge  from  an  ulcer 
consequent  on  Vaccination.  These  they  cut  into  strips,  and  sold 
about  the  country  as  impregnated  with  the  true  Vaccine  Virus. 
Several  hundred  persons  were  actually  inoculated  with  the  poison,, 
which,  in  several  cases,  produced  great  disturbance  in  the  con- 
stitution. A  vessel  arrived  from  London  at  Marblehead  with  a 
sailor  on  board,  who  was  supposed  to  have  Cowpox :  matter  was 
taken  from  him,  and  was  used  extensively.  It  was  soon  discovered 
that  Smallpox  matter  had  been  employed,  and  that  disease  spread 
rapidly  through  the  neighbourhood.  These  blunders,  it  is  to  be 
feared,  were  not  confined  to  vagrant  quacks,  inasmuch  as  medical 
men  were  not  quite  blameless."1' 

*  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  i.  p.  387. 


382  VACCINATION. 


Whilst  such  doings  discredited  vaccination  in  one  way, 
they  served  it  in  another :  they  made  it  easy  to  conceal 
its  failures  and  injuries  by  ascribing  them  to  the  use  of 
spurious  virus.  Everything  is  to  be  gained  for  truth  in 
the  question  of  vaccination  by  taking  it  in  what  its 
believers  allow  to  be  its  unexceptionable  form,  so  as  to 
leave  no  room  for  evasion.  Smallpox  in  America  as  in 
England  soon  showed  itself  indifferent  to  the  art  of  the 
vaccinator,  and  then  it  was  settled  that  at  least  it  made 
the  disease  milder ;  and  under  cover  of  the  convenient 
fiction,  it  continued  to  be  practised  where  fees  were  to 
be  had  for  the  performance. 

The  attitude  of  the  medical  mind  to  epidemics,  and 
the  ignorance  of  what  we  now  regard  as  the  first  ele- 
ments of  sanitary  science,  are  illustrated  with  touching 
sincerity  in  a  letter  addressed  by  Dr.  Waterhouse,  in 
1817,  to  the  surgeons  of  the  United  States  army.  Said 
the  Jenner  of  the  New  World — 

You  need  not  waste  your  time,  or  distract  your  attention  by 
guessing  at  the  remote  causes  of  dysenteries  or  epidemic  fevers. 
We  learn  from  the  highest  authority,  that  the  pestilence  "  walketh 
in  darkness."  The  enemy  approaches  unseen.  We  are  pretty  well 
convinced  that  epidemic  fevers  depend  not  on  any  of  those  changes 
in  the  air  that  are  pointed  out  by  the  thermometer,  barometer, 
or  hygrometer.  These  wide-spreading  maladies,  as  well  as  endemics, 
or  local  disorders,  seem  as  if  they  arose  from  some  secret  move- 
ments, or  alterations  in  the  earth,  or  on  its  surface — that  is,  on  some 
new  combinations  in  the  soil,  or  some  effluvium  from  a  deeper 
situation,  affecting  not  only  the  air  we  breathe,  but  the  water  which 
we  use  for  everything.  Epidemics  seem  to  accompany  or  follow 
a  blighted  state  of  vegetation.  They  seem  also  to  accompany  an 
abundant  harvest ;  but  whether  in  the  series  of  cause  and  effect  is  not 
fully  known.  As  to  myself,  I'm  weary  of  conjecture. 

Well  might  he  be  weary  !  He  does  not  say  so,  but  neither 
does  he  make  any  reserve  in  favour  of  vaccination ;  and, 
after  seventeen  years'  trial  of  it,  the  old  physician  must 
have  included  it  in  his  cry  of  Vanitas  Vanitatum ! 


INTRODUCTION  TO  INDIA  AND  THE  EAST.          383 


CHAPTER    XXIX. 

INTRODUCTION   OF  VACCINATION  TO  INDIA  AND  THE  EAST. 

THE  enthusiasm  for  cowpox  in  England  was  reproduced 
with  fury  among  the  English  in  India.  It  is  always 
so.  What  is  the  fashion  at  home  is  an  intenser  fashion 
abroad. 

When  we  say  India,  we  speak  as  of  a  country  when  we 
are  dealing  with  a  continent — of  not  one  but  many 
peoples,  of  races  numerous  and  tongues  various :  where- 
fore, in  naming  India,  I  would  be  understood  as  limiting 
my  remarks  to  the  portion  designated,  and  to  the  popu- 
lation affected  by  English  influence.  In  several  parts  of 
India  smallpox  is  endemic — begotten  in  permanently  un- 
wholesome conditions  of  life,  and  cultivated  and  propa- 
gated by  inoculation.  When,  therefore,  it  was  heard  that 
cowpox  might  be  substituted  for  smallpox,  and  that  the 
mild  served  every  purpose  of  the  severe  disease,  there 
arose  a  demand  among  the  English  for  the  virus,  alike  for 
their  own  and  for  native  use.  Dr.  Underwood,  writing 
to  Jenner  from  Madras,  28th  Feb.,  1801,  observed — 

I  have  read  with  very  great  pleasure  your  publications  on  Cow- 
pox,  and  feel  particularly  anxious  to  introduce  and  extend  it  in  this 
country,  under  the  greatest  confidence  that  it  would  save  many 
lives.  I  have  hitherto  embraced  every  opportunity  of  inoculating 
with  variolous  matter,  but  the  loss  of  a  beautiful  little  patient  has 
humbled  me,  and  I  confess  I  never  now  take  up  a  lancet  but  with 
fear  and  trembling.* 

It  was  easier  to  ask  than  to  obtain.  There  was  no 
cowpox  to  be  heard  of  in  India,  and  the  long  voyage 
round  the  Cape,  and  the  tropical  heat  were  fatal  to  its 
transmission.  Repeated  attempts  were  made,  but  all 
ended  in  failure.  Jenner  proposed  to  place  a  number  of 
picked  men  on  board  an  East  Indiaman,  and  to  have 
them  successively  vaccinated  in  the  course  of  the  voy- 
age, so  as  to  land  with  fresh  virus  in  Bombay  or  Calcutta ; 

*  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  i.  p.  410. 


384  VACCINATION. 


but  the  East  India  Company  declined  the  proposal.  An 
attempt  was  then  made  to  raise  a  subscription  for  the 
purpose,  Jenner  putting  his  name  down  for  1,000  guineas; 
though  it  was  difficult  to  imagine  where  the  1,000  guineas 
were  to  come  from,  unless  out  of  the  pockets  of  some  of 
his  admirers.* 

These  efforts  were,  however,  superseded  by  the  energy 
and  ingenuity  of  Dr.  De  Carro,  of  Vienna.  Lord  Elgin, 
British  ambassador  to  the  Porte,  had  made  acquaintance 
with  De  Carro,  and  had  received  virus  from  him  with 
which  his  infant  son  and  others  were  vaccinated  at  Con- 
stantinople. The  news  spreading  abroad,  Lord  Elgin  was 
entreated  to  meet  the  Indian  demand,  sending  the  vac- 
cine overland  to  Bombay  by  way  of  Bagdad  and  Bussora. 
He  made  several  futile  attempts,  and  thereon  determined 
to  place  the  matter  in  the  hands  of  De  Carro ;  and  for 
that  purpose  addressed  himself  to  the  Hon.  Arthur  Paget, 
British  ambassador  at  Vienna,  saying — 

I  have  so  many  applications  for  Vaccine  Virus  from  Bussora,  the 
East  Indies,  and  Ceylon,  that  I  beg  you  will  immediately  apply  to 
Dr.  De  Carro,  and  request  him  to  send  some  by  every  courier,  f 

De  Carro  accepted  the  commission  with  alacrity.  He 
had  already  had  an  application  from  Bagdad,  and,  dis- 
missing the  vehicles  which  had  been  tried  and  failed, 
such  as  lancets  of  steel,  silver,  gold,  and  ivory,  and  threads 
enclosed  in  quills,  he  saturated  lint  with  virus,  and,  plac- 
ing it  between  glasses,  in  one  of  which  was  a  cavity  for 
its  reception,  tied  them  together,  sealed  the  edges,  and, 
taking  them  to  a  wax  chandler,  had  them  dipped  until 
enclosed  in  a  ball  of  wax,  which  was  packed  in  a  box 
stuffed  with  shreds  of  paper.  In  this  manner  virus  was 
conveyed  through  Constantinople,  across  the  deserts  to 
Bagdad,  where  it  was  received  on  31st  March,  1802,  still 
liquid,  and  was  used  "  with  complete  success."  The  like 
success  was  reported  from  Bussora,  Muscat,  and  Bushire. 
From  Bussora  virus  was  conveyed  to  Bombay,  arriving, 


*  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  i.  p.  409.       t  Ibid.  vol.  i.  p.  419. 


INTRODUCTION  TO  INDIA  AND  THE  EAST.  385 

after  a  three  weeks'  voyage,  early  in  June.  Twenty  or 
thirty  were  inoculated  with  the  Vienna  virus,  but  only 
one  "  took,"  namely,  Anna  Dusthall,  a  child  about  three 
years  of  age,  who  was  operated  upon  by  Dr.  Helenus 
Scott.  The  progress  of  the  case  was  watched  with  in- 
tense anxiety,  and  correspondent  satisfaction  when  the 
symptoms  developed  according  to  the  recognised  descrip- 
tion. On  the  eighth  day  five  children  were  vaccinated 
from  Dusthall's  arm,  and  loud  was  the  rejoicing  when  it 
was  known  that  for  India  was  secured  the  genuine  Vari- 
olse  Vaccinse.  From  Bombay  "  the  precious  fluid  "  was  in 
due  course  conveyed  to  Ceylon,  Madras,  Calcutta,  and 
wherever  English  influence  prevailed.  De  Carro  was 
naturally  elated  with  his  success.  The  virus  he  trans- 
mitted was  originally  obtained  from  the  stock  of  Dr. 
Sacco,  of  Milan,  who  had  it  off  some  Lombard  cows.* 

Jenner  wrote  to  De  Carro  to  congratulate  him,  28th 
March,  1803— 

Since  the  commencement  of  our  correspondence,  great  as  my 
satisfaction  has  been  in  the  perusal  of  your  letters,  I  do  not  recol- 
lect when  you  have  favoured  me  with  one  that  has  afforded  me 
pleasure  equal  to  the  last.  The  regret  I  have  experienced  at  find- 
ing that  every  endeavour  to  send  the  Vaccine  Virus  to  India  in 
perfection  has  again  failed,  is  scarcely  to  be  described  to  you ;  judge, 
then,  what  pleasure  you  convey  in  assuring  me  that  my  wishes  are 
accomplished.! 

The  imported  cowpox  was  diffused  and  recommended 
with  energy  and  with  fraud.  Jenner,  writing  to  Dun- 
ning, 2nd  November,  1804,  observed — 

Conceiving  it  might  be  a  gratification  to  you  to  see  how  system- 
atically they  manage  vaccine  affairs  in  India,  I  have  sent  you  a 
copy  of  a  paper  just  transmitted  to  me  from  the  India  House. 
Would  to  Heaven  we  could  boast  of  such  arrangements  here  ! 

Here  is  the  paper  which  sets  forth  the  energetic  policy 
pursued  — 

FORT-WILLIAM,  15th  January,  1804. 
With  a  view  of  extending  the  practice  of  Vaccine  Inoculation 

*  Histoire  de  la  Vaccination  en  Turquie  et  V Orient.  Par  Jean  de  Carro. 
Vienne,  1804. 

t  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  i.  p.  428. 
25 


386  VACCINATION. 

throughout  the  East  India  Company's  territories  in  India,  the  Gov- 
ernor-General in  Council  of  Bengal  has  appointed  a  Superintend- 
ent-General of  Vaccine  Inoculation  at  the  Presidency,  and  estab- 
lished subordinate  superintendents  at  several  of  the  interior  stations 
of  the  country ;  namely,  at  Decca,  Moorshedabad,  Patna,  Benares, 
Allahabad,  Cawnpore,  and  Farruckabad.  These  superintendents 
are  the  surgeons  of  the  stations,  and  are  to  act  under  the  orders  of 
the  Superintendent-General  in  whatever  regards  Vaccine  Inocula- 
tion. The  civil  surgeons  also  at  the  several  judicial  and  revenue 
stations  are  to  co-operate  with  these  superintendents  for  the  purpose 
of  forwarding  the  general  object. 

Vaccine  Inoculation  has  also  been  introduced  with  success  into 
Prince  of  Wales  Island,  and  it  is  intended  to  extend  the  practice  to 
Malacca  and  other  places  to  the  eastward ;  and  a  confident  expec- 
tation is  entertained  that  the  benefits  of  this  valuable  discovery 
will  be  diffused  throughout  Asia.  It  is  even  in  contemplation  to 
extend  it  to  China ;  but  as  the  suspicious  disposition  of  the  Chinese 
might  possibly  ascribe  any  attempt  to  introduce  this  novel  practice 
to  sinister  motives,  it  has  been  postponed  until  the  opinion  of  the 
Company's  servants  there  can  be  obtained. 

Much  of  this  policy  was  due  to  the  Marquis  Wellesley, 
the  Governor-General,  whose  habit  it  was  to  convert  con- 
viction without  delay  into  performance.  To  what  extent 
it  was  found  practicable  to  substitute  vaccination  for 
variolation  among  the  natives  does  not  clearly  appear. 
It  was  comparatively  easy  to  operate  upon  those  imme- 
diately dependent  upon  their  conquerors ;  but  it  was  a 
different  matter  to  disarm  the  aversion  of  the  external 
myriads.  Supposing  the  variolators  preferred  their 
ancient  practice  because  it  was  more  lucrative,  a  number 
of  them  were  brought  to  Calcutta,  and  inquiry  made  as 
to  the  amount  of  their  gains,  which  ascertained,  they 
were  offered  double  pay  if  they  would  adopt  vaccination. 
The  offer  was  readily  accepted,  and  other  variolators, 
hearing  of  it,  volunteered  their  services  on  similar  terms, 
and  were  instructed  and  enrolled  as  official  vaccinators. 
A  declaration  was  drawn  up  and  signed  by  twenty-six 
of  these  converted  variolators,  recommending  vaccination 
to  the  Eastern  world.  The  declaration  was  published  in 
the  Calcutta  Gazette,  printed  in  four  languages,  and 
widely  circulated  throughout  India.* 

*  The  History  and  Practice  of  Vaccination.  By  James  Moore.  Lon- 
don, 1817.  P.  236. 


INTRODUCTION  TO  INDIA  AND  THE  EAST.          387 

So  much  was  possible  to  Government ;  but  other  means 
of  persuasion  were  not  neglected.  It  was  at  first  ima- 
gined that  pox  from  the  cow  would  exactly  suit  people 
who  held  that  animal  in  reverence ;  but,  on  the  contrary, 
the  fact  was  converted  by  the  Brahmins  into  an  argu- 
ment against  its  use,  they  contending,  and  justly,  that 
cowpox  was  impure.  To  meet  this  difficulty,  various 
pious  frauds  were  attempted.  It  was  pretended  that 
vaccination  was  no  novelty  in  India,  and  that  it  was 
known,  sanctioned,  and  practised  from  time  immemorial. 
Baron,  Jenner's  biographer,  relates  these  details  without 
animadversion — 

A  native  physician  of  Bareilly  put  into  the  hands  of  Mr.  Gillman, 
who  was  surgeon  at  that  station,  some  leaves  purporting  to  be  an 
extract  from  a  Sanscrit  work  on  medicine,  entitled  "  Sud'ha  San- 
greha,"  by  a  physician  named  Mahadeva,  to  this  effect — 

"  Take  the  matter  of  pustules,  which  are  naturally  produced  on 
the  teats  of  Cows,  carefully  preserve  it,  and  before  the  breaking 
out  of  Smallpox  make  with  a  fine  instrument  a  small  puncture 
(like  that  made  by  a  gnat)  in  a  child's  limb,  and  introduce  into  the 
blood  as  much  of  that  matter  as  is  measured  by  a  quarter  of  a  ratti. 
Thus  the  wise  physician  renders  the  child  secure  from  the  eruption 
of  the  Smallpox." 

The  Sanscrit  work  from  which  this  passage  was  asserted 
to  be  taken  was  never  forthcoming,  and  by  competent 
authorities  was  pronounced  "  nothing  more  than  a  well- 
meant  device  for  the  reduction  of  ignorant  prejudices,"  the 
native  physician  who  put  the  leaves  into  the  hands  of  Mr. 
Gillman  being  included  in  the  fiction.  Baron  continues — 

In  order  to  overcome  these  native  prejudices  the  late  Mr.  Ellis, 
of  Madras,  who  was  well  versed  in  Sanscrit  literature,  actually 
composed  a  short  poem  in  that  language  on  Vaccination.  The 
poem  was  written  on  old  paper,  and  was  said  to  have  been  found, 
that  the  impression  of  its  antiquity  might  assist  the  effect  intended 
to  be  produced  on  the  minds  of  the  Brahmins  while  tracing  the  pre- 
vention to  their  sacred  cow. 

The  late  Mr.  Anderson,  of  Madras,  adopted  the  very  same  expe- 
dient, in  order  to  deceive  the  Hindoos  into  a  belief  that  Vaccination 
was  an  ancient  practice  of  their  own.  It  is  scarcely  necessary  to 
observe  that  had  any  authentic  record  of  such  a  practice  existed 
these  gentlemen  would  never  have  resorted  to  such  contrivances  to 
gain  their  object.* 

*  Baron's  Life  ofJenner,  vol.  i.  pp.  556—559. 


388  VACCINATION. 


These  impostors  were  not  priests,  but  medical  men ;  not 
Jesuits,  but  Protestants  ;  not  Levantines,  but  Englishmen 
in  the  service  of  the  Honourable  East  India  Company 
To  what  extent  their  frauds  were  operative  is  not  related. 
They  were  probably  too  contemptuous  of  native  acumen. 
For  good  and  for  evil  the  Hindoo  listens  to  English  ad- 
vice courteously  and  without  contradiction,  but  persists 
in  his  accustomed  way  of  life  with  the  equanimity  of 
indifference.  That  vaccination  was  an  ancient  practice 
in  India  came  to  be  repeated  in  Europe  and  seriously 
believed,  when,  Jenner's  originality  being  impugned,  the 
truth  came  out,  that  old  Indian  vaccination  was  a  device 
limited  to  Indian  circumstances,  and  never  designed  for 
Western  acceptance. 

In  Madras  vaccination  was  practised  with  much 
energy.  Jenner,  writing  on  7th  May,  1808,  said,  "  Won- 
derful to  relate,  the  numbers  vaccinated  in  that  Presi- 
dency in  the  course  of  last  year  amount  to  243,175."* 
In  Bombay  it  was  claimed  that  smallpox  was  extirpated ; 
Dr.  Helenus  Scott  reporting,  5th  December,  1806,  that 
"  in  this  island,  swarming  with  mankind,  no  loss  from 
smallpox  has  been  suffered  for  several  years  since  the  in- 
troduction of  vaccine  inoculation."-)*  It  was  not  pre- 
tended that  all  the  inhabitants  of  Bombay  had  been 
vaccinated,  or  even  a  considerable  portion  of  them ;  but 
the  early  vaccinators  appear  to  have  regarded  vaccination 
as  a  sort  of  charm,  the  possession  of  which  kept  off  small- 
pox ;  that  by  the  vaccination,  say,  of  one-tenth  of  any 
population,  the  unvaccinated  nine-tenths  were  protected. 
This  faith  in  the  vicarious  efficacy  of  vaccination  was 
not  expressly  avowed,  but  was  implied  in  the  numerous 
reports  of  extirpated  smallpox  in  circumstances  where  no 
attempt  was  made,  or  was  indeed  possible,  to  effect  uni- 
versal vaccination. 

Confuted  and  frustrated  in  England,  it  was  Jenner's 
habit  to  sigh,  and  turn  from  his  ungrateful  country 
to  the  vast  realms  of  Europe  and  Asia  and  America. 

*  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  ii.  p.  359.         t  lb.,  vol.  ii.  p.  92. 


INTRODUCTION  TO  INDIA  AND  THE  EAST.          389 

Writing  to  Dunning,  on  23rd  December,  1804,  he  ob- 
served— 

Foreigners  hear,  with  the  utmost  astonishment,  that  in  some 
parts  of  England  there  are  persons  who  still  inoculate  for  Small- 
pox. It  must,  indeed,  excite  their  wonder  when  they  see  that 
disease  totally  exterminated  in  some  of  their  largest  cities  and  in 
wide-extended  districts  around  them. 

Mark  the  words — Smallpox  totally  exterminated  in 
some  of  the  largest  cities  in  1804;  that  was  to  say,  after, 
at  the  utmost,  five  years'  acquaintance  with  vaccination  ! 
A  miraculous  time — was  it  not  ?  Jenner  went  on — 

Let  us  not,  my  friends,  vex  ourselves  too  much  at  what  we  see 
here.  Let  us  consider  this  country  as  but  a  speck  when  compared 
with  the  wide  surface  of  our  planet,  over  which,  thank  God !  Vac- 
cinia has  everywhere  shed  her  influence.  From  the  potentate  to 
the  peasant,  in  every  country  but  this,  she  is  received  with  grateful 
and  open  arms.  What  an  admirable  arrangement  is  that  made  by 
the  Marquis  of  Wellesley,  the  Governor- General  of  India,  for  the 
extermination  of  the  Smallpox  in  that  quarter  of  the  globe  !  Con- 
trasted with  our  efforts  here,  what  pigmies  we  appear.* 

Omne  ignotum  pro  magnifico  est.  What  inference 
worth  a  straw  could  Jenner  or  anyone  else  draw  from 
the  introduction  of  vaccination  to  India  ?  The  number 
of  the  various  Indian  peoples  was  unknown ;  and  the 
periods  and  prevalence  of  smallpox  among  them  ;  also 
the  extent  to  which  they  practised  variolation.  In  the 
absence  of  such  elementary  information,  tales  of  the 
triumphs  of  vaccination  in  India  were  so  much  romance. 

So  far  as  vaccination  displaced  variolation,  it  might  be 
taken  as  the  substitution  of  a  less  evil  for  a  greater  ;  and 
much  is  accounted  for  in  some  of  the  early  records  of 
vaccination  when  it  is  remembered  that  the  new  practice 
was  welcomed  as  a  deliverance  from  the  inconveniences 
and  horrors  of  the  old;  and  that  the  discredited  practice 
was  frequently  abandoned  without  resort  to  its  successor. 
A  cessation  of  variolation  was  a  cessation  of  the  culture 
and  diffusion  of  smallpox;  and  vaccination  had  often 
the  credit  of  the  reduction  of  smallpox  when  the  credit 


Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  ii.  p.  24. 


390  VACCINATION. 


was  due  to  the  abatement  of  variolation.  As  to  the  pro- 
pagation of  smallpox  by  variolation,  no  one  was  more 
emphatic  than  Jenner,  as  for  example — 

Where  Variolous  Inoculation  is  put  in  practice,  Smallpox  must 
necessarily  spread.* 

Smallpox  will  never  be  subdued  so  long  as  men  can  be  hired  to 
spread  the  contagion  by  Inoculation. f 

If  then  it  be  taken  as  conceded  that  variolation  spread 
smallpox  wherever  practised,  can  it  be  fair  to  omit  the 
consideration  of  the  consequences  of  its  abatement  when 
estimating  the  results  of  the  introduction  of  vaccination? 
Yet  scarcely  an  advocate  of  vaccination  permits  the  fact 
to  enter  into  his  reckoning ! 

The  gratitude  of  the  English  in  India  to  Jenner  did 
not  evaporate  without  substantial  expression.  A  sub- 
scription was  started,  and  between  1806  and  1812  he 
received  remittances  to  the  amount  of  £7,383,  the  con- 
tributors being — 

Bengal,  £4,000 

Bombay,         2,000 

Madras,          1,383 

An  amusing  instance  of  Jenner's  ignorance  of  India 
is  found  in  a  letter  to  Dunning,  14th  March,  1807, 
wherein  he  ascribes  his  English  money  from  India  to  the 
gratitude  of  Hindoo  women — 

You  will  be  pleased  to  hear  that  the  dingy  Hindoo  ladies  are 
convincing  me  of  their  grateful  remembrance,  not  merely  in  words, 
but  by  a  tangible  offering,  while  my  fair  Christian  countrywomen 
pass  me  unheeded  by.J 

Jenner,  in  returning  thanks  to  Dr.  Fleming,  of  Calcutta, 
for  the  first  remittance  of  cash  in  1806,  took  occasion  to 
communicate  some  English  news,  which  is  not  without 
interest  at  this  day.  He  wrote — 

To  say  the  truth,  this  country  has  been  dreadfully  supine  in  the 
matter  of  Vaccination  hitherto.  Some  pamphlets,  full  of  the  grossest 
misrepresentations  and  forgeries,  have  been  spread ;  and  the  com- 

*  Letter  to  Dunning,  23d  December,  1804. 
t  Letter  to  Worthington,  4th  May,  1810. 
J  Baron's  Life  of  Joiner,  vol.  ii.  p.  356. 


INTRODUCTION  TO  INDIA  AND  THE  EAST.          391 

mon  people  became  so  terrified,  particularly  when  told  that  their 
children,  if  vaccinated,  would  take  the  similitudes  of  bulls  and  cows, 
that  a  great  dislike  to  the  practice  has  arisen  among  them ;  and 
these  accounts  have  been  circulated  through  the  country  with 
peculiar  industry.  The  consequence  has  been  the  re -introduction  of 
Variolous  Inoculation,  which  has  produced  an  epidemic  Smallpox 
through  the  metropolis  and  the  whole  island,  except  in  those  parts 
where  Vaccination  had  previously  been  so  generally  adopted  as  to 
forbid  its  approach.  This,  now  too  late,  has  opened  their  eyes,  and 
they  see  the  powers  of  the  Cowpox.  The  folly  of  the  oppositionists 
has  gone  so  far  as  to  exhibit  prints  of  children  undergoing  trans- 
formation from  the  human  being  into  that  of  the  brute.* 

These  prints  were,  many  of  them,  intended  for  fun, 
and  could  have  no  serious  influence.  The  decline  of 
faith  in  vaccination  was  due  to  the  general  discovery 
that  it  did  not  prevent  smallpox,  and  that  it  did  excite 
other  ailments.  "  It  made  smallpox  milder  "  was  the 
apology  even  then  coming  into  vogue.  As  for  the  epi- 
demic of  smallpox  raised  in  London  and  the  whole  island 
by  the  neglect  of  vaccination  and  a  return  to  variolation, 
it  was  a  creation  of  Jenner's  fancy.  There  was  less 
smallpox  in  London  in  1806  than  in  1805 ;  but  if  there 
was  not  more,  the  bold  Jennerian  would  answer,  there 
ought  to  have  been,  and  it  could  only  be  through  the 
mercy  of  Providence  that  there  was  not. 

Throughout  the  century,  the  English  in  India  have 
spared  no  pains  to  diffuse  and  enforce  vaccination  among 
the  inhabitants,  numerous  medical  men  finding  place  and 
pay  in  the  futile  occupation.  Smallpox  can  only  be 
overcome  by  systematic  sanitation,  which  is  laborious 
and  difficult ;  and  among  peoples  whose  conditions  and 
habits  of  life  freely  generate  zymotic  disease,  vaccination 
is  as  likely  to  be  effective  as  any  other  sort  of  incanta- 
tion. Sir  Richard  Temple  states  the  position  at  this  day 
in  these  words — 

Smallpox  is  universally  prevalent  in  India,  carrying  off  tens  of 
thousands  of  victims,  children  especially,  in  almost  every  province 
year  by  year,  and  impairing  or  disfiguring  others  for  life.  The 
Government  has  for  many  years  made  persistent  efforts  to  arrest 

*  Baron's  Life  ofJenner,  vol.  ii.  p.  89. 


392  VACCINATION. 


the  disease  by  means  of  Vaccination,  with  remarkable 'success  in 
some  districts,  like  that  of  Kumaonin  the  Himalayas,  but  generally 
with  indifferent  success,  and  often  without  any  perceptible  result. 
The  practice  of  Vaccination  not  being  in  vogue,  Inoculation  used 
to  be  largely  adopted  by  the  natives  in  many  districts,  but  has  now 
been  prohibited,  though  not  always  prevented  actually.  The  State 
everywhere  undertakes  or  encourages  Vaccination.  Hundreds  of 
native  vaccinators  are  employed,  and  returns  are  rendered  of  large 
numbers  of  persons  said  to  be  successfully  vaccinated.  Neverthe- 
less Smallpox  appears  again  and  again  with  terrible  manifestations 
before  the  people,  and  causes  them  to  disbelieve  the  efficacy  of 
Vaccination.* 

We  now  come  to  Ceylon,  in  which  vaccination  was 
held  to  have  had  a  perfect  triumph.  "  To  Sweden  and 
to  Ceylon,"  says  Baron,  "  Dr.  Jenner  was  in  the  habit  of 
pointing  when  he  wished  to  prove  what  his  discovery 
might  accomplish ;  or  when  he  lamented  that  fatal 
obstinacy  of  his  fellow-creatures  which,  with  such 
examples  before  them,  could  induce  them  to  reject  bless- 
ings within  their  reach."f  Sweden  we  shall  discuss  in 
another  chapter,  and  of  Ceylon  I  may  observe  that  a 
portion  of  the  island  was  taken  by  the  British  from  the 
Dutch  in  1795,  and  that  in  several  parts  it  was  extremely 
unhealthy,  Smallpox  was  a  frequent  and  deadly  epi- 
demic, but  to  what  extent  there  is  no  evidence  save  hear- 
say and  estimates  from  hearsay.  The  Dutch  did  not 
concern  themselves  with  the  health  of  the  natives,  but 
when  the  English  took  over  their  settlements  in  1800  in 
the  midst  of  a  severe  epidemic,  they  opened  hospitals  for 
smallpox  and  for  inoculation  with  smallpox  under  the 
supervision  of  Dr.  Christie.^  He,  hearing  the  glad  tid- 
ings of  vaccination,  resolved  to  introduce  the  practice, 
and  having  in  1802  received  virus  from  Dr,  Scott,  of 
Bombay,  he  set  to  work  with  systematic  energy  and  per- 
severance. Supported  by  the  authority  of  successive 
Governors,  he  closed  the  hospitals,  forbade  variolation, 
organised  a  staff  of  vaccinators,  and  kept  them  employed, 


*  India  in  1880.  t  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  i.  p.  426. 

£  ^4??,  Account  of  the  Introduction,  Progress,  and  Success  of  Vaccination 
in  Ceylon.     By  Thomas  Christie,  M.D.     London,  1811. 


INTRODUCTION  TO  INDIA  AND  THE  EAST.          393 

until  the  greater  part  of  the  population  under  English 
influence  was  vaccinated.  In  the  words  of  Moore, 
writing  in  1816 — 

At  length  the  priesthood  submitted  to  Vaccination,  the  last  to 
adopt  this  innovation  upon  their  ancient  customs  ;  and  the  remains 
of  the  Smallpox  were  happily  extinguished  in  all  that  part  of  the 
island  which  belonged  to  Great  Britain.* 

That  smallpox  had  been  exterminated  by  vaccination 
in  Ceylon  was  set  forth  by  vaccinators  as  something  in- 
disputable; but  there  were  two  observations  to  make — 
first,  that  smallpox  was  often  suppressed  in  the  sense 
that  for  a  time  there  was  no  smallpox  in  a  certain 
population,  and  especially  subsequent  to  a  severe  epi- 
demic; and  second,  that  variolation  was  suppressed. 
Granted  that  smallpox  ceased  in  Ceylon  coincidently  with 
the  introduction  of  vaccination,  it  may  be  fairly  held 
that  the  exhaustion  induced  by  the  preceding  epidemic, 
and  the  cessation  of  variolation,  were  sufficient  to  account 
for  the  phenomenon.  What  remains  to  be  said  of  Ceylon, 
I  shall  leave  Dr.  George  Gregory,  physician  .of  the  London 
Smallpox  and  Vaccination  Hospital,  to  say  for  me.  He 
wrote — 

Ceylon  was  the  British  colony  where  the  Government  earliest 
interfered  and  most  vigorously  encouraged  the  practice  of  Vaccina- 
tion. Salaried  vaccinators  were  scattered  over  the  whole  island. 
So  successful  were  their  labours,  that  up  to  the  beginning  of  1819, 
it  had  often  been  said  that  the  experiment  of  exterminating  Small- 
pox had  been  made  and  successfully  carried  out  in  Ceylon.  In 
July,  1819,  however,  a  severe  epidemic  Smallpox  broke  out  there. 
In  1830  a  second  epidemic  overspread  the  island — in  1883  a  third, 
and  in  1836  a  fourth.  In  these  four  epidemics,  12,557  persons 
were  attacked,  of  whom  4,090  died,  being  at  the  rate  of  33  per 
cent.,  or  one  out  of  every  three. 

In  each  of  these  epidemics  a  certain  number  of  vaccinated 
persons  took  Smallpox.  The  proportion  of  the  vaccinated  to  the 
unprotected  varied.  In  the  third  epidemic,  out  of  a  total  of  460 
attacked,  341  represented  themselves  as  vaccinated.f 

Vaccination  was  introduced  to  China  from  the  English 

*  The  History  and  Practice  of  Vaccination,  By  James  Moore. 
London,  1817.  P.  242. 

t  Lectures  on  the  Eruptive,  Fevers.     London,  1843.     P.  210. 


394  VACCINATION. 


factory  at  Canton,  and  Sir  George  Staunton  translated 
into  Chinese  a  tract  on  Cowpox,  and  had  it  printed  at 
Canton  in  1805,  the  translator's  name  and  the  foreign 
origin  of  the  practice  being  suppressed.  Jenner,  writing 
to  Dunning,  10th  December,  1806,  said — 

From  Canton  I  have  a  most  curious  production — a  pamphlet  on 
Vaccination  in  the  Chinese  language.  Little  did  I  think,  my 
friend,  when  our  correspondence  first  began,  that  Heaven  had  in 
store  for  me  such  abundant  happiness.  May  I  be  grateful ! 

The  Chinese  had  their  own  system  of  variolation, 
namely,  the  use  of  pulverised  smallpox  scabs  as  snuff; 
but  some  of  them  accepted  vaccination,  tried  it,  and 
dropped  it  when  they  found  it  did  not  keep  off  the 
disease  as  warranted.  Smallpox  in  China  is  almost  ex- 
clusively a  disease  of  childhood,  and  is  little  dreaded. 
Dr.  D.  F.  Rennie,  medical  officer  to  the  British  Embassy  at 
Peking  in  1861-62,  says  of  that  city — 

Since  1820  vaccination  (introduced  from  Canton)  has  been 
practised  to  a  limited  extent  among  the  population — probably  one- 
fifth  may  be  vaccinated.  At  one  time  it  was  believed  to  afford 
protection,  Smallpox  not  having  been  so  common  immediately 
after  its  introduction.  Of  recent  years,  however,  confidence  in  it 
has  considerably  diminished,  owing  to  the  frequency  with  which 
those  are  attacked  who  have  been  vaccinated.* 

Persia  was  sometimes  referred  to  in  the  ravings  that 
went  on  as  to  the  triumphs  of  vaccination  in  the  East ; 
but  what  was  known  of  Persia  ?  The  practice  was  intro- 
duced where  Europeans  were  resident,  but  it  never 
became  general.  Dr.  C.  J.  Willis  has  recently  described 
surgery  and  medicine  in  Persia  as  extremely  rude  and 
superstitious,  and  that  "vaccination  is  not  in  favour, 
whilst  inoculation,  or  the  direct  communication  of  the 
disorder,  by  placing  the  patient  in  the  same  bed  with  one 
suffering  from  smallpox  of  the  most  virulent  type,  is  the 
method  pursued."  -f- 

It  was  natural  enough  for  Jenner,  in  presence  of 
failure  and  contempt  in  England,  to  appeal  to  success  in 

*  Peking  and  the  Pekingese.     London  :  1865. 
t  British  Medical  Journal,  26th  April,  1879. 


DIFFUSION  THROUGHOUT  EUROPE.  395 


the  East,  and  to  try  to  overwhelm  his  adversaries  with 
evidence  which  they  could  not  overtake ;  but  any  one  of 
judicial  temper  must  have  perceived  that  if  vaccination 
was  to  be  vindicated,  data  of  a  very  different  order  would 
have  to  be  forthcoming.  Where  the  number  of  the 
population  in  a  distant  region  was  unknown,  where  the 
ordinary  prevalence  of  smallpox  among  the  people  was 
undefined,  where  the  extent  of  artificial  variolation  was 
unspecified,  and  the  existence  and  intensity  of  related 
forms  of  zymotic  disease  were  undescribed,  what  con- 
clusion could  be  drawn  as  to  the  efficacy  of  vaccination 
that  a  man  of  science  was  bound  to  respect  ?  Why 
should  certain  knowledge  in  England  be  surrendered  for 
assertion  from  abroad. 


CHAPTER   XXX. 

DIFFUSION  OF  VACCINATION  THEOUGHOUT  EUROPE. 

VACCINATION  was  accepted  as  a  revelation,  and  diffused 
as  a  religion,  and  was  almost  everywhere  received  gladly. 
We  have  to  bear  in  mind,  however,  that  the  way  had 
been  made  straight  for  it  by  the  practice  of  inoculation 
with  smallpox ;  which  practice,  after  a  struggle  pro- 
longed over  many  years,  had  become  an  established  part 
of  medical  art,  and  was  only  limited  in  its  application  by 
the  inconvenience  and  risks  that  attended  it.  The  pro- 
mise of  the  primitive  vaccinators  was,  that  the  security 
which  resulted  from  inoculation  with  smallpox  was  to  be 
had  from  inoculation  with  cowpox,  with  absolute  cer- 
tainty, absolute  safety,  and  absolute  permanence.  The 
argument  was,  that  since  no  one  could  have  smallpox 
twice  (however  slight  the  attack),  and  as  cowpox  was  a 
mild  form  of  smallpox,  it  sufficed  to  be  inoculated  with 
cowpox  to  be  safe  from  smallpox  through  life;  and  if 
only  the  infliction  of  cowpox  were  made  universal, 
smallpox  would  be  extirpated.  Such  was  the  plausible 
doctrine ;  so  plausible  that  it  had  only  to  be  stated  to 


396 


VACCINATION. 


command  assent;  whilst  so  great  was  the  elation  over 
the  discovery  (as  much,  perhaps,  for  deliverance  from 
inoculation  with  smallpox  as  from  smallpox  itself)  that 
it  was  accounted  a  sacred  duty  to  diffuse  its  benefits  over 
the  whole  earth.  Greater  good  on  easier  terms  it  was 
difficult  to  imagine.  With  a  scratch  of  a  needle  one  of 
the  worst  penalties  attached  to  over-crowding,  to  filth, 
and  to  ill-living,  might  be  avoided  and  done  away  with 
for  ever. 

How  pleasant  are  such  sugared  lies, 

Deceiving  by  their  sweetness  ! 

The  first  cowpox  missionaries  were  Dr.  Marshall  and 
Dr.  Walker.  £100  was  teased  out  of  the  Admiralty,  and 
£100  out  of  the  War  Office  toward  their  expenses,  and 
placed  on  board  the  Endymion,  they  proceeded,  on  1st 
July,  1800,  to  the  Mediterranean.  At  Gibraltar,  Minorca, 
and  Malta,  they  vaccinated  soldiers  and  sailors,  first 
operating  on  orphans  and  foundlings  to  give  the  gallant 
fellows  courage.  Then  Walker  accompanied  Sir  Ralph 
Abercrombie  to  Egypt,  from  whence,  after  a  variety  of 
adventures,  he  returned  to  London  to  serve  as  domestic 
apostle,  and  vex  Jenner  for  the  remainder  of  his  life. 
Marshall  proceeded  to  Sicily  and  Naples.  In  Palermo, 
in  the  preceding  year,  1799,  there  had  been  an  epidemic, 
in  which,  it  was  said,  8,000  had  perished,  and  Marshall 
appeared  on  the  scene  as  a  belated  messenger  of  salvation. 
At  Naples  he  had  a  cordial  reception  from  the  wretched 
Ferdinand  IV.  and  his  wretched  court,  who,  with  general 
indifference  or  enmity  to  what  was  good,  were  ready  to 
show  themselves  gracious  toward  cowpox.  Marshall 
went  through  the  customary  performances  of  the  variolous 
test  and  the  exposure  of  the  vaccinated  to  infection ;  and 
without  further  ado  an  hospital  was  opened,  and  all  who 
would  be  saved  from  smallpox  were  entreated  to  hasten 
and  receive  the  new  inoculation. 

It  was  not  unusual  [wrote  Marshall  to  Jenner]  to  see  in  the 
morning  a  procession  of  men,  women,  and  children,  conducted 
through  the  streets  by  a  priest  carrying  a  cross,  coming  to  the 
hospital  to  be  inoculated.  By  such  popular  means,  the  practice 


DIFFUSION  THROUGHOUT  EUROPE.  397 


met  with  no  opposition ;  and  the  common  people  expressed  them- 
selves as  certain  that  it  was  a  blessing  sent  from  Heaven,  though 
discovered  by  one  heretic  and  practised  by  another. 

When  Marshall  was  at  Gibraltar,  Lord  Keith  issued 
the  following  memorandum  to  the  fleet — 

H.M.  Ship  Foudroyant, 
GIBRALTAR  BAY,  19th  October,  1800. 

Any  soldiers,  seamen,  or  marines  in  the  Fleet  who  may  not  have 
had  the  Smallpox,  and  wish  to  avoid  that  dreadful  malady,  may, 
by  application  to  Dr.  Marshall,  on  board  the  flag-ship,  be  inocu- 
lated with  the  Cowpox,  which,  without  pain  or  illness,  or  requiring- 
particular  diet  or  state  of  body,  or  leaving  any  marks,  effectually 
excludes  all  possibility  of  the  patient  ever  being  affected  with  the 
Smallpox. 

By  command  of  the  Vice-Admiral,  PHILIP  BEAVER. 

To  the  respective  Captains  of  the  Fleet. 

I  may  observe,  in  passing,  that  there  was  little  delay 
in  introducing  vaccination  to  the  British  navy.  Sir 
Gilbert  Blane  was  urgent,  Earl  Spencer,  first  Lord  of 
the  Admiralty,  acquiescent,  and  Dr.  Trotter,  physician  ta 
the  fleet,  enthusiastic.  So  early  as  9th  December,  1800, 
Trotter  was  prophesying — 

The  Jennerian  Inoculation  will  be  deservedly  recorded  as  one 
of  the  greatest  blessings  to  the  navy  of  Great  Britain  that  ever 
was  extended  to  it. 

Smallpox  was  one  of  the  pests  of  the  service.  Trotter, 
writing  20th  February,  1801,  said — 

Within  the  past  seven  years  there  have  been  more  than  a 
hundred  instances  in  which  the  seamen  have  been  infected ; 
twenty  having  occurred  in  the  last  six  months  in  the  Channel 
fleet  alone. 

These  outbreaks  were  invariably  referred  to  an  origin 
external  to  the  ship  ;  as  if  anywhere  smallpox  could  have 
had  a  more  congenial  breeding-place  than  the  crew  of  a 
man-of-war !  As  Dr.  Johnson  observed,  "  When  you 
look  down  from  the  quarter-deck  to  the  space  below,  you 
see  the  utmost  extremity  of  human  misery ;  such  crowd- 
ing, such  filth,  such  stench  !"*  Incited  by  the  enthusi- 

*  Boswell  (Croker's  Ed.)  vol.  vii.  p.  102. 


398  VACCINATION. 

astic  Trotter,  the  medical  officers  of  the  Fleet  subscribed 
for  a  gold  medal,  and  presented  it  to  Jenner.  On  the 
obverse,  Apollo  was  represented  introducing  a  young  sea- 
man recovered  from  cowpox  to  Britannia,  who,  in  return, 
extended  a  civic  crown,  on  which  was  inscribed  JENNEK; 
above  were  the  words,  Alba  nautis  stella  refulsit,  and 
below  the  date,  1801.  On  the  reverse  was  an  anchor 
and  over  it  Georgia  Tertio  Rege,  and  under  it  Spencer 
Duces.  The  medal  was  presented  to  Jenner  in  February, 
1801. 

The  dates  are  worth  noting  afresh.  Jenner's  Inquiry 
was  published  in  the  summer  of  1798 ;  and  thus  we  see 
that  within  three  years  his  prescription  for  the  pre- 
vention and  extermination  of  smallpox  was  adopted  in  a 
branch  of  the  public  service  where  obstinate  conservatism 
was  the  ruling  temper ;  and  an  assertion  that  only  time 
could  test  was  accepted  without  hesitation  as  verified  and 
certain.  If  vaccination  had  answered  to  the  claim  made 
for  it,  the  haste  wherewith  it  was  acknowledged  would 
have  been  unjustifiable,  and  wholly  unlike  the  struggle 
that  truth  has  commonly  to  pass  through  in  order  to 
obtain  supremacy  in  the  intellect  and  practice  of  man- 
kind. 

The  first  attempts  to  inoculate  with  cowpox  in  France 
proving  futile,  Dr.  Woodville  went  over  to  Paris  in  1800 
to  show  in  practice  the  method  of  operation.  He  had  a 
warm  reception,  and  the  Quaker  was  overwhelmed  with 
the  exuberant  attentions  to  which  he  was  subjected.  In 
the  Moniteur  he  was  described  as  "  a  learned  man,  ani- 
mated with  generous  zeal,  and  worthy  of  gratitude  and 
praise ;"  who  had  inoculated  six  thousand  children  with 
invariable  success ;  and  that  cowpox  as  a  preventive  of 
smallpox  could  only  be  spoken  of  as  something  miracu- 
lous. A  house  was  opened  as  a  vaccine  station,  and  men, 
women,  and  children,  flocked  thither  to  receive  the  benign 
fluid  and  life-long  protection  from  a  dreadful  malady. 

When  the  negotiations  for  the  peace  of  Amiens  were  in 
progress,  1802,  an  address  was  presented  with  much 
pomp  to  the  Marquis  Cornwallis  by  the  Medical  Com- 


DIFFUSION  THROUGHOUT  EUROPE.  399 

nrittee  of  the  Somme,  claiming  brotherhood  with  the 
physicians  of  England,  eulogising  Jenner,  denouncing  his 
detractors,  stigmatising  variolators  as  acting  neither  from 
the  love  of  truth  nor  for  the  glory  of  their  profession, 
but,  from  avarice  and  hatred  of  improvement ;  whilst,  as 
the  result  of  numerous  experiments,  "  the  discovery  made 
in  England  had  been  stamped  with  the  seal  of  infallibility 
in  France." 

At  first,  vaccination  in  France  was  left  to  voluntary 
effort,  and  made  little  progress  in  face  of  a  strenuous 
resistance  developed  by  alarmed  variolators ;  but  a  severe 
smallpox  epidemic  in  1802  incited  the  Government  to 
action.  A  medical  commission  was  appointed  to  investi- 
gate and  report,  and  in  1804  it  was  determined  to  spare 
no  effort  to  extend  vaccination  over  the  whole  of  France. 
A  Central  Committee  for  Vaccination  was  constituted, 
and  appeals  and  commands  were  addressed  to  the  clergy 
and  officials  of  all  orders  to  have  those  under  their 
authority  and  influence  inoculated  with  cowpox.  Some 
prefects  were  content  to  recommend  and  warn,  but  others 
adopted  more  vigorous  measures,  such  as  the  exclusion  of 
the  unvaccinated  from  schools,  from  employment,  from 
charities — in  short,  anticipating  much  legislation  that  has 
come  into  force,  or  that  fanatics  wish  to  bring  into  force. 
Nevertheless,  the  progress  made  did  not  satisfy  Napoleon, 
and  seeing  that  until  vaccination  was  everywhere  paid 
for  by  the  State,  its  performance  must  remain  irregular 
and  perfunctory,  a  manifesto  was  issued  to  the  effect  that 
his  Majesty  the  Emperor  and  King  had  learned  from  the 
reports  of  the  Central  Committee  that  the  preservation 
and  increase  of  his  vast  dominions  were  immediately  re- 
lated to  systematic  and  universal  vaccination ;  wherefore, 
his  Majesty,  wishing  to  give  a  signal  mark  of  his  paternal 
solicitude  for  his  subjects,  had  granted  to  his  Excellency 
the  Minister  of  the  Interior,  an  annual  special  credit, 
destined  to  provide  for  the  expenses  necessary  for  ex- 
tending the  new  practice,  and  for  forming  centres  of  issue 
of  vaccine  virus  in  twenty-four  of  the  chief  cities  of  the 
Empire — these,  then,  including  Brussels,  Florence,  Parma 


400 


VACCINATION. 


and  Turin.  And  his  Majesty  had  also,  out  of  his  paternal 
benevolence,  provided  annual  prizes  as  incentives  to 
emulation  in  propagating  vaccination,  so  that  the  scourge 
of  smallpox  might  be  completely  banished  from  his  terri- 
tories. 

It  would  be  idle  to  speculate  as  to  how  much  serious 
faith  lay  within  this  apparent  zeal  for  vaccination ;  for, 
as  Professor  Seeley  observes,  "  Napoleon  seemed  to  care 
for  no  opinion,  though  he  adopted,  with  studied  artificial 
vehemence,  every  fashionable  opinion  in  turn."  There 
might  be,  I  dare  say,  something  piquant  to  his  theatrical 
genius  in  opposing  his  odious  contempt  for  human  life  to 
the  rigorous  enforcement  of  what  was  considered  a  supreme 
prescription  for  its  preservation.  Jenner  availed  himself 
of  the  Emperor's  histrionic  instinct  in  soliciting  the  re- 
lease of  English  travellers  detained  in  France.  To  one  of 
these  occasions  we  owe  the  artless  anecdote  of  the  arrest 
of  Napoleon's  refusal  by  the  interposition  of  Josephine, 
who  exclaimed,  "Jenner!"  The  Emperor  paused  and 
said,  "  Jenner  !  ah,  we  can  deny  nothing  to  that  man  ! " 
It  is  sad  to  relate,  the  favour  was  not  reciprocated. 
When  Jenner,  at  the  suggestion  of  Baron  Corvisart, 
appealed  to  the  British  Government  for  similar  indul- 
gence to  a  Frenchman,  he  had  to  report  that  there 
was  no  charm  in  his  intervention  among  his  country- 
men. 

That  vaccination  should  have  a  welcome  in  Spain  was 
not  surprising,  after  its  reception  in  Naples.  The  craze 
was  universal,  and  diffused  through  the  lowest  intelli- 
gences. Cowpox  was  introduced  to  Madrid  with  the 
certificate  of  France  under  that  of  England ;  and,  spite  of 
the  distractions  of  the  time,  excited  much  attention. 
Mr.  Allen,  secretary  to  Lord  Holland,  writing  to  Jenner 
from  Madrid  in  1803,  observed —  / 

There  is  no  country  likely  to  receive  more  benefit  from  your 
labours  than  Spain;  for,  on  the  one  hand,  the  mortality  among 
children  from  the  Smallpox  has  always  been  very  great ;  and,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  inoculation  for  the  Cowpox  has  been  received 
with  the  same  enthusiasm  here  as  in  the  rest  of  Europe  ;  though  I 


DIFFUSION  THROUGHOUT  EUROPE.  401 

am  sorry  to  add  that  the  inoculation  of  the  spurious  sort  has  proved 
fatal  to  many  children  at  Seville,  who  have  fallen  victims  to  the 
Smallpox  after  they  had  been  pronounced  secure  from  that  disease.* 

There  were  philosophising  doctors  in  Madrid  who  did 
not  see  why  cowpox  should  possess  a  singular  efficacy, 
and  induced  the  King,  in  1804,  to  order  that  all  the 
children  in  the  foundling  hospital  should  be  inoculated 
with  goatpox.  They  did  not,  perhaps,  know  that  Jenner 
had  inoculated  his  son  with  swinepox,  and  that  the  child 
underwent  the  variolous  test  on  several  occasions  with 
impunity. 

The  great  event  in  connection  with  Spain  was  the 
expedition  of  Dr.  Francis  Xavier  Balmis,  physician  to  his 
Catholic  Majesty.  He  obtained  a  concession  to  introduce 
vaccination  to  the  colonies  in  America  and  Asia,  and  to 
defray  expenses  by  freely  trading  in  merchandise.  He 
sailed  from  Corunna,  30th  November,  1803,  with  twenty- 
two  children  for  the  propagation  of  virus.  The  Canary 
Islands  were  first  visited,  then  Porto  Rico,  and  at  Caracas 
the  party  divided,  Don  Francis  Salvani  proceeding  to 
Peru  and  Chili,  whilst  Balmis  attended  to  Cuba  and 
Mexico,  crossing  the  Pacific  to  the  Philippines  with 
twenty-six  children  to  maintain  the  succession  of  the 
virus,  and  proceeding  from  thence  to  Macao  and  Canton. 
Having  circumnavigated  the  globe  as  vaccinator  and 
trader,  Balmis  re-appeared  in  Madrid  with  great  eclat, 
and  kissed  the  King's  hand  on  7th  September,  1806. 
Philanthropy  and  business  were  successfully  combined, 
for  as  Moore,  writing  in  1817,  observes — 

Nearly  three  years  were  nobly  spent  by  this  excellent  man  in 
putting  a  Vaccine  Girdle  round  the  globe  ;  and  it  is  an  additional 
pleasure  to  learn  that  by  trading  during  his  circumnavigation,  he 
acquired  an  easy  fortune.  He  now  enjoys  at  Madrid  the  distinction 
he  has  merited,  and  patronises  the  diffusion  of  Vaccination  through 
the  Peninsula.f 

*  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  i.  p.  604.  Allen  little  suspected  that 
there  never  was  any  spurious  Cowpox;  that  it  was  only  "spurious" 
when  it  did  not  prevent  Smallpox. 

t  The  History  of  Vaccination.  By  James  Moore.  London,  1818. 
P.  279. 

26 


402  VACCINATION. 


The  expedition  of  Balmis  naturally  excited  much  at- 
tention, and  its  progress  and  results  were  described  in 
terms  of  inflated  rhetoric.  Thus,  we  read  in  Baron's  Life 
of  Jenner — 

The  conductors  of  the  expedition  were  everywhere  welcomed 
with  the  utmost  enthusiasm.  It  was  to  be  expected  that  the 
representatives  of  the  Spanish  Monarch,  and  all  the  constituted 
authorities,  would  gladly  co-operate  ;  but  it  was  scarcely  to  be 
anticipated  that  the  unenlightened  minds  of  the  Indians  would  so 
soon  appreciate  the  value  of  the  mission.  It  is,  nevertheless,  most 
gratifying  to  know  that  the  numerous  hordes  which  occupy  the 
immense  tract  of  country  between  the  United  States  and  the 
Spanish  colonies  all  received  the  precious  fluid  with  the  utmost 
readiness.  They  acquired  the  art  of  vaccinating,  and  soon  per- 
formed the  operation  with  great  dexterity. 

Thus  not  only  the  Spanish  Americans  were  brought 
under  the  dominion  of  cowpox,  but  the  Indians,  yea,  all 
the  Indians;  and  not  reluctantly,  but  joyfully,  and 
became  experts  in  the  practice  of  the  rite  !  Baron  con- 
tinues— 

Fame  had  preceded  the  arrival  of  Salvani  at  Santa  Fe.  On 
approaching  the  capital,  he  was  met  by  the  Viceroy,  the  Arch- 
bishop, and  all  the  civil  and  ecclesiastical  authorities.  The  event 
was  celebrated  with  religious  pomp  and  ceremonies ;  and  in  a 
short  time  more  than  fifty  thousand  persons  were  vaccinated. 
Similar  honours  awaited  the  expedition  throughout  its  whole 
course.  At  Quito  they  were  greeted  with  boundless  joy  and 
festivity.  Such  expressions  well  became  them.  The  people  of 
Colombia,  the  Indians  more  especially,  having  been  often  scourged 
by  the  horrid  ravages  of  Smallpox,  regarded  it  as  the  most  terrible 
affliction  which  Heaven  could  send  them.  On  its  first  appearance 
in  a  village,  a  panic  seized  every  heart ;  each  family  prepared  an 
isolated  hovel,  to  which  those  who  were  supposed  to  be  infected 
were  banished.  There,  without  succour,  without  remedy,  and  with 
a  very  insufficient  supply  of  food,  they  were  exposed  to  the  alter- 
nations of  a  very  variable  climate,  and  left  to  their  fate.  In  this 
way  whole  generations  perished.  Under  Viceroy  Toledo  the  popu- 
lation of  the  native  Indians  had  amounted  to  7,500,000 ;  but  at  the 
time  of  the  Balmis  expedition,  the  number  was  supposed  to  be 
reduced  to  one-fifth— that  is  1,500,000.* 

Indian  and  savage  statistics  in  connection  with  small- 
pox and  vaccination  are  usually  little  else  than  exercises 

*  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  ii.  pp.  80-2. 


DIFFUSION  THROUGHOUT  EUROPE.  403 

in  imaginative  desire — less  what  is  true  than  what  is 
wished  to  be  true,  or  to  be  taken  for  true.  We  know 
the  difficulty  of  vaccinating  populations  dwelling  within 
defined  limits  and  under  highly  organised  governments, 
and  we  can  therefore  estimate  the  claims  made  for  Balmis 
and  his  partners  as  roving  traders  and  quacks  in  the 
territories  occupied  by  Spaniards  and  Indians.  Yet  it 
was  with  yards  of  mythical  rubbish  of  this  sort  that 
English  vaccinators  tried  to  divert  the  attention  of  their 
countrymen  from  the  failures  of  vaccination  within  their 
own  experience ;  and  when  worried  with  ever-recurring 
disasters  at  home,  it  was  in  turning  to  Mexico  and  Peru 
that  Jenner  professed  to  find  consolation. 

Dr.  Sacco,  of  Milan,  was  described  as  "  the  apostle  of 
vaccination  in  Northern  Italy,"  and  "  unquestionably  the 
greatest  vaccinator  in  the  world."*  His  operations  re- 
ceived the  sanction  of  the  Napoleonic  administration,  and 
as  early  as  1801  he  was  appointed  Director  of  Vaccina- 
tion to  the  Cisalpine  Republic.  "Strong  measures," 
writes  Moore,  "  were  adopted ;  proclamations  were  read 
from  every  pulpit;  vaccination  was  practised  in  every 
church ;  and  the  clergy  gave  such  effectual  aid,  that  the 
Professor  and  his  associates  in  three  years  vaccinated 
70,000  persons,  and  extinguished  smallpox  inLombardy."f 
In  other  words,  the  vaccination  of  70,000  persons  ex- 
tinguished smallpox  in  a  population  of  several  millions ! 
Baron  enlarges  the  numbers,  saying  that  Dr.  Sacco  and 
his  assistants  in  the  course  of  eight  years  vaccinated 
1,300,000  persons ;  and  cites  a  letter  from  Sacco,  dated 
from  Trieste,  5th  January,  1808,  with  the  following  ex- 
traordinary statement — 

During  eight  years  I  reckon  more  than  600,000  vaccinated  by 
my  own  hand,  and  more  than  700,000  by  my  deputies  in  the 
different  departments  of  the  kingdom.  I  assure  you,  out  of  a 
population  of  6,000,000  to  have  vaccinated  1,300,000  is  something 
to  boast  of;  and  I  natter  myself  that  in  Italy  I  have  been  the 
means  of  promoting  Vaccination  in  a  degree  which  no  other  king- 
dom of  the  same  population  has  equalled.  J 

*  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  ii.  p.  234.  J  Ib.  vol.  ii.  p.  112. 

t  History  of  Vaccination,  London,  1817.    P.  263. 


404  VACCINATION. 


Moore's  70,000  is  a  credible  number,  whatever  may  be 
thought  of  its  vicarious  operation ;  but  Sacco's  600,000 
by  his  own  hand  in  eight  years  !  Ah,  well !  when  we  are 
lost  in  the  fabulous,  it  is  unnecessary  to  waste  our 
strength  in  the  discrimination  of  the  greater  from  the  less 
in  falsehood.  Nevertheless,  taking  Sacco's  figures,  we 
have  to  observe  that  the  vaccination  of  1,300,000  saved 
6,000,000  from  smallpox.  That  Italy  was  freed  from 
smallpox  is  true,  and  the  exemption  of  the  population, 
whether  vaccinated  or  unvaccinated,  was  prolonged  over 
nearly  thirty  years.  The  disappearance  of  the  disease 
had,  however,  set  in  before  vaccination  was  heard  of,  but 
the  subsidence  was  claimed  for  Sacco,  although  it  ex- 
tended to  millions  of  Italians  who  owed  nothing  to  the 
new  prophylactic.  As  already  observed,  from  some  cause 
undefined,  the  area  and  intensity  of  smallpox  was  signally 
diminishing  toward  the  close  of  last  century,  and  this  in 
spite  of  the  stimulus  applied  to  the  disease  by  variolous 
inoculation.  It  may  have  been  so  stimulated  as  to  have 
been  worked  out — forced,  as  it  were,  to  exhaustion,  after 
the  habit  of  much  else,  good  and  bad,  when  developed  to 
the  extremity  of  existence. 

As  a  grand  vaccinator  Dr.  De  Carro,  of  Vienna,  was 
scarcely  less  distinguished  than  Sacco.  He  was  a  Swiss 
from  Geneva,  who  had  studied  and  graduated  at  Edin- 
burgh, and  settled  in  Vienna.  He  performed  the  first 
vaccination  on  the  Continent,  in  1799,  with  virus 
conveyed  on  a  couple  of  threads  from  Dr.  Pearson ;  and 
in  1802  he  succeeded  in  transmitting  the  first  effective 
virus  to  India.  De  Carro  conducted  his  operations  with 
great  energy  and  tact,  and  in  1802  he  induced  the 
Austrian  Government  to  issue  an  ordinance  conferring 
on  vaccination  Imperial  sanction  and  recommendation. 
Concurrently  with  this  activity,  smallpox  was  abating, 
and  post  hoc  was  converted  into  propter  hoc.  De  Carro 
was  credited  with  the  extinction  of  smallpox  in  Vienna ; 
but  as  no  more  than  a  portion  of  the  citizens  had  been 
vaccinated,  Vienna  thus  supplied  another  instance  of  the 
vicarious  influence  of  the  Jennerian  rite. 


DIFFUSION  THROUGHOUT  EUROPE.  405 

Sacco  and  De  Carro  corresponded  with  Jenner,  and  it 
is  worth  noting  that  both  concurred  with  him  in  the 
opinion  that  cowpox  originated  in  horsegrease ;  and, 
further,  that  horsegrease  was  as  good  against  smallpox 
as  horsegrease  cowpox  itself.  Indeed,  Sacco  set  up  a 
stock  of  virus  derived  from  horsegrease,  operated  with 
it,  and  supplied  De  Carro,  who  used  it  so  freely  in  Vienna 
that,  as  he  said,  he  could  not  tell  the  vaccinated  from 
the  equinated.  Writing  to  Jenner,  on  21st  June,  1803, 
De  Carro  observed — 

The  means  of  making  your  discovery  were  everywhere  ;  yet 
nobody  before  you  had  the  least  idea  of  the  singular  connection 
between  the  Horsegrease,  the  Cowpox,  and  the  Smallpox.* 

The  favour  shown  for  vaccination  by  the  English 
Court  facilitated  its  adoption  throughout  Germany  •  and 
yet  it  might  be  said  the  craze  went  of  itself,  compelling 
patronage  and  exacting  advocacy.  The  King  of  Prussia 
opened  a  Royal  Inoculation  Institute  in  Berlin,  and 
tracts  and  medals,  speeches  and  sermons,  were  brought 
into  requisition  to  recommend  the  new  rite.  From  the 
furore  created,  many  were  led  to  believe  that  all  Prussia 
was  vaccinated,  and  as  smallpox  ceased  to  prevail,  cow- 
pox  had  the  credit.  To  vaccinate  a  nation,  however,  is 
far  from  easily  accomplished,  and  when  we  refer  to  the 
official  accounts,  we  discover  that,  notwithstanding  great 
ado,  the  numbers  operated  upon  constituted  less  than  a 
tithe  of  the  people.  Jenner  cites  a  report  of  Professor 
Avelin,  of  Berlin,  in  a  letter  to  Moore,  loth  February, 
1812,  as  authority  for  these  statistics — 

The  anniversary  of  the  invention  of  the  Cowpox  Inoculation,  or 
the  Jennerian  Feast,  was  celebrated  very  solemnly  at  Berlin  on 
14th  May.  By  public  accounts,  it  appears  that  there  were  inocu- 
lated in  all  the  Prussian  States — 

In  1801 9,772 

1802 17,052 

1803 50,054 

1804 102,350 

1805 43,585 

At  these  times  the  population  was  about  9,743,000.     From  1806 

*  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  ii.  p.  432. 


406  VACCINATION. 


to  1810  (since  the  horrible  war  and  the  diminution  of  the  population 
to  4,338,000)  the  inoculated  were  160,329.  Dr.  Bremer  alone  at 
the  Eoyal  Institute  in  Berlin  inoculated  14,605.  The  total,  as 
officially  and  voluntarily  sent  to  the  Government,  amounted  to 
402,720  vaccinated,  but  certainly  one-half  was  not  officially  men- 
tioned. It  may  certainly  be  at  least  600,000,  or  even  800,000.* 

Supposing  a  million  had  been  vaccinated  in  Prussia  in 
the  course  of  ten  years,  let  me  ask  once  more,  how  could 
they  have  saved  the  remaining  millions  from  smallpox  ? 
Yet,  with  knowledge  of  these  figures,  Moore,  the  Director 
of  the  National  Vaccine  Establishment  in  London,  did 
not  hesitate  to  write — 

The  King  of  Prussia  directed  his  children  to  be  vaccinated,  and 
also  issued  orders  that  Vaccination  should  be  immediately  employed 
in  the  Army ;  and  the  new  practice  encountered  no  further  diffi- 
culties. By  which,  and  by  the  total  abandonment  of  Variolous 
Inoculation  throughout  Germany,  the  Smallpox  rapidly  declined ; 
and  in  a  few  years  was  extinguished  in  some  of  the  largest  cities, 
from  whose  purlieus  infectious  diseases  are  expelled  with  great 
difficulty.  Thus  even  in  Vienna,  where  full  four  hundred  persons 
had  annually  been  destroyed  by  the  Smallpox,  this  mortality 
diminished  rapidly  after  the  introduction  of  the  Vaccine,  and  in  five 
years  absolutely  ceased.f 

Kussia,  of  course,  followed  suit  in  cowpox  inoculation. 
At  the  coronation  of  Alexander  in  Moscow  in  1801  a 
foundling  was  operated  on,  christened  Vaccinoff,  pen- 
sioned for  life,  and  dispatched  to  St.  Petersburg  to  serve 
as  a  source  of  virus  for  other  foundlings.  Then  followed 
imperial  decrees  prescribing  vaccination,  and  Dr.  Crichton 
was  directed  to  organise  a  medical  staff  for  the  perform- 
ance of  the  rite  in  each  province  of  the  Empire.  In  1811 
a  ukase  was  issued  commanding  all  Russians  to  be  vac- 
cinated within  three  years.  As  measuring  the  possi- 
bilities of  despotism  in  such  a  matter,  we  learn  from  Dr. 
Crichton  that  between  1804  and  1812  there  were  1,235,597 
vaccinations  performed  in  Russia — a  similar  number  to 
that  which  Sacco  professed  to  have  accomplished  in 
Northern  Italy  in  the  same  time.  It  was  estimated  in 
Russia  that  of  every  seven  children  born,  one  perished 

*  Baron's  Life  ofJenner,  vol.  ii.  p.  378. 
t  History  o    Vaccination,  p.  245. 


DIFFUSION  THROUGHOUT  EUROPE.  407 

oE  smallpox,  and  therefore  Crichton  argued  the  lives  of 
176,514  had  (up  to  1812)  been  saved  by  vaccination. 
The  calculation  illustrates  the  facility  with  which  the 
early  vaccinators  deceived  themselves — first,  as  to  the 
certainty  of  their  prophylactic ;  second,  as  to  its  vicarious 
efficacy ;  and,  third,  in  assuming  that  a  reduction  in 
smallpox  represented  a  reduction  in  mortality. 

From  Crichton,  too,  we  learn  that  there  were  anti- 
vaccinists  in  Russia  in  those  days — 

Notwithstanding  the  supreme  order  of  His  Imperial  Majesty, 
that  all  his  subjects  be  vaccinated  within  three  years,  we  find  that, 
powerful  as  his  Majesty  is,  this  cannot  be  executed.  There  is  a 
power  greater  than  sovereignty,  namely,  the  conscience  of  religious 
opinions  of  men,  and  in  one  or  two  of  the  distant  governments 
there  exists  a  peculiar  religious  sect  belonging  to  the  Greek  Church, 
who  esteem  it  a  damnable  crime  to  encourage  the  propagation  of 
any  disease,  or  to  employ  any  doctors,  or  to  swallow  any  medicines 
under  the  visitations  of  God.  Eeason  has  been  employed  in  vain 
with  these  poor  people ;  they  have  been  threatened  with  severe 
punishments  in  case  they  remain  refractory,  but  all  to  no  purpose. 
You  may  well  imagine  that  no  punishment  has  been  resorted  to, 
though  threatened,  and  the  Government  has  come  to  the  wise 
conclusion  of  leaving  the  dispute  to  time.5'' 

To  complete  this  rapid  survey  of  the  diffusion  of  vac- 
cination throughout  Europe,  there  remain  Sweden  with 
Finland,  and  Denmark  with  Iceland ;  but  as  the  case  of 
Sweden  is  specially  interesting  and  instructive  from  the 
fulness  and  precision  of  its  vital  statistics,  coupled  with 
the  claim  made  by  vaccinators  that  Sweden  affords 
irrefutable  evidence  of  the  efficacy  of  their  prescription, 
I  reserve  it  for  a  special  chapter.  There  is  nothing 
pleasanter  than  finding  the  strongholds  of  one's  antagon- 
ists, capturing,  and  occupying  them. 


*  Baron's  Life  ofJenner,  vol.  ii.  p.  186. 


408  VACCINATION. 


CHAPTEK   XXXI. 

SWEDEN,  DENMARK  AND   ICELAND. 

JENNER  was  in  tne  habit  of  pointing  to  Sweden  and 
Ceylon  as  proofs  of  what  vaccination  might  accomplish. 
We  have  seen  how  badly  Ceylon  answered  to  his  refer- 
ence ;  and  I  now  proceed  to  inquire  whether  Sweden 
served  his  purpose  any  better. 

The  decline  of  smallpox  in  some  communities,  contem- 
poraneously with  the  introduction  of  vaccination,  might 
be  ascribed  to  the  cessation  of  inoculation  with  smallpox 
— virtually  the  culture  of  that  disease ;  but  in  Sweden 
little  had  to  be  accounted  for  in  that  way.  Spite  of 
strong  recommendations,  variolation  was  rarely  practised, 
and  never  became  popular.  The  very  year  that  vaccina- 
tion was  introduced,  Dr.  Acksell,  of  Kalmer,  stated  in  an 
official  report,  dated  30th  March,  1801,  "that  it  is  im- 
possible to  convince  the  lower  classes  of  the  advantages  of 
inoculation.  Dr.  Colliander  and  I  have  had  it  announced 
to  the  people  from  the  pulpit,  that  we  were  ready  to 
give  our  services,  gratis,  in  inoc'ulating  their  children,  but 
not  a  single  person  applied."  And  such  undoubtedly  was 
the  state  of  things  throughout  the  kingdom. 

Sweden  last  century  was  sorely  afflicted  with  smallpox, 
and,  considering  the  repute  of  variolation  in  other  lands, 
it  is  surprising  how  the  people  refrained  from  its  vaunted 
protection.  It  is  thought  dreadful  that  in  London  one 
death  in  ten  should  have  been  due  to  this  disease,  but  in 
Sweden  the  ratio  stood  as  high  as  one  in  seven.  To  give 
some  idea  of  the  extent  of  the  mischief  at  its  highest  and 
its  lowest,  let  us  look  at  eighteen  years  in  the  latter  half 
of  the  century — 


SWEDEN,  DENMARK  AND  ICELAND. 


409 


Year. 

Population. 

Total  Deaths. 

From  Smallpox. 

1752   . 

1,799,188 

49,467 

10,302 

1757   . 

1,870,372 

55,829 

10,241 

1763   . 

1,940,011 

64,180 

11,662 

1768   . 

2,006,790 

54,751 

10,650 

1769   . 

2,015,127 

54,991 

10,215 

1773   . 

1,972,407 

105,139 

12,130 

1775   . 

2,020,847 

49,949 

1,275 

1776   . 

2,041,289 

45,692 

1,503 

1777   . 

2,057,147 

51,096 

2,943 

1778   . 

2,073,396 

55,028 

16,607 

1781   . 

2,132,912 

54,313 

1,485 

1784   . 

2,145,213 

63,792 

12,453 

1786   . 

2,156,109 

55,951 

671 

1787   . 

2,163,862 

51,998 

1,771 

1792   . 

2,211,643 

52,958 

1,939 

1797   . 

2,322,814 

55,036 

1,733 

1798   . 

2,344,228 

53,862 

1,357 

1800   . 

2,347,303 

73,928' 

12,032 

In  these  figures  we  see  how  wide  were  the  variations 
in  smallpox  mortality  prior  to  the  introduction  of  vacci- 
nation ;  and  also  how  indifferent  was  its  influence  on  the 
general  mortality,  much  smallpox  not  raising  the  death- 
rate,  nor  little  smallpox  lowering  it. 

Among  the  factors  of  mortality  in  Sweden  were 
scarcity  and  famine.  At  this  day,  when  the  ends  of  the 
earth  are  drawn  together,  we  are  apt  to  forget  the  struggle, 
the  misery,  and  the  sickness  that  prevailed  when  a  defi- 
cient harvest  in  one  country,  or  parts  of  the  same  country, 
could  not  be  made  good  from  the  sufficiency  of  others. 
Population  in  Northern  Europe  did  little  more  than 
maintain  existence  through  several  centuries  against  the 
severity  of  Nature,  with  food  scant  and  bad,  and  raiment 
and  shelter  inadequate.  Of  the  latter  fifty  years  of  last 
century,  at  least  fifteen  were  years  of  dearth  in  Sweden, 
and  consequently  of  increased  mortality. 

The  chief  sufferers  from  deficient  and  unsuitable  food 
are  the  young,  their  suffering  having  form  in  various  ail- 
ments, and  among  them  smallpox.  I  have  repeatedly  had 
to  point  out  how  smallpox  is  especially  an  affection  of 
childhood,  and  how  in  Scotland,  for  instance,  it  used  to 
be  almost  exclusively  confined  to  the  young,  like  measles 


410  VACCINATION. 


and  whooping-cough.     The  like  was  true  of  Sweden ;  for 
of  the  deaths  from  smallpox  from  1774  to  1708 — 

8*19  per  cent,  were  under  one  year  of  age  ; 
21-90         „  between  one  and  three ; 

31-77         „  „        three  and  five ; 

23-74         „  ,,        five  and  ten ; 

a  total  of  85*60  per  cent,  being  mere  children.     Or,  to  put 
it  otherwise — 

In  1778,  when  16,607  perished,  13,096  were  under  ten. 
1784       „      12,453         „         11,789 
1786       „  671         „  625 

1798      „        1,357        „          1,207 

and  so  on. 

Now,  whilst  I  have  no  wish  to  minimise  the  sadness 
and  culpability  of  the  mortality  of  the  young,  I  have  yet 
to  maintain  that  its  consequences  are  by  no  means  so 
serious  to  the  State  as  when  the  heads  of  families  and 
bread-winners  are  stricken  down ;  and  that  it  is  a  gross 
exaggeration  to  compare  the  fatality  of  smallpox  with 
that  of  men  slain  in  battle.  Again,  we  have  to  recollect 
how  many  of  the  young  die  from  smallpox,  so  to  say, 
needlessly,  from  inattention  and  malpractice.  This  was 
clearly  recognised  in  a  Royal  Letter  issued  from  Stock- 
holm in  1763,  recommending  variolation,  in  which  the 
Medical  Board  was  directed  "to  instruct  the  common 
people  how  children  should  be  treated  when  suffering 
from  natural  smallpox,"  assigning  the  cogent  reason, 
"  because  many  more  children  die  from  want  of  care  than 
from  the  disease."  The  assertion  may  be  taken  as  indis- 
putable ;  and,  being  true,  it  stands  for  the  fact  that  the 
mortality  from  smallpox  might  have  been  largely  re- 
duced if  parents  had  had  the  knowledge  and  the  means 
to  nurse  their  offspring  through  their  illness.  They  died 
less  of  smallpox  than  of  ignorant  and  defective  treatment 
whilst  under  smallpox. 

I  have  also  to  observe  that  smallpox  in  Sweden  was 
steadily  declining  toward  the  close  of  the  century,  and 
that  the  decline  continued  into  the  present  century. 
Taking  the  years  in  decades  from  1749  to  1868,  and 
casting  the  average,  we  have  these  results — 


SWEDEN,  DENMARK  AND  ICELAND. 


411 


Annual  Death-         Annual 

Deaths 

rate  per 

Deaths  from 

Decade. 

Population. 

Annually. 

1,000. 

Smallpox. 

1749-58 

1,821,009 

50,556 

27-76 

6,056 

1759-68 

1,946,258 

53,288 

27'38 

5,309 

1769-78 

2,028,141 

59,262 

29-22 

4-535 

1779-88 

2,140,315 

56,766 

26-52 

5,179 

1789-98 

2,246,744 

57,883 

25-76 

3,810 

1799-08 

2,394,432 

63,365 

26-46 

3,282 

1809-18 

2,444,568 

67,537 

27-63 

690 

1819-28 

2,787,025 

63,121 

22-60 

373 

1829-38 

2,976,829 

70,168 

23-57 

633 

1839-48 

3,255,604 

68,080 

20-91 

299 

1849-58 

3,588,571 

78,218 

21-80 

816 

1859-68 

4,016,690 

79,033 

19-68 

861 

With  these  details  before  us,  we  are  in  a  position  to 
appreciate  the  claim  made  for  vaccination,  that  it  exter- 
minated Smallpox  in  Sweden. 

Vaccination  began  to  be  practised  in  Sweden  in  the 
year  1801.  It  was  at  first  viewed  with  distrust  by  some 
of  the  leading  medical  authorities,  but  grew  so  rapidly  in 
favour,  that  the  medical  board  in  1803  ventured  to  make 
proposals  for  its  general  introduction.  By  Royal  Letters 
in  1804  and  1805  measures  were  decreed  for  the  en- 
couragement of  Vaccination;  and  in  the  almanacs  for 
1806,  information  and  advice  were  inserted  concerning 
"  the  new  and  certain  means  for  the  prevention  and  ex- 
tirpation of  Smallpox."  Nevertheless,  the  practice  made 
way  but  slowly  into  the  confidence  of  the  common  people, 
and  not  until  1812  did  a  committee  of  the  Diet  go  so  far 
as  to  recommend  its  compulsory  adoption.  The  principle 
of  compulsion  was  affirmed  by  the  Diet  in  1815,  leading 
to  a  Royal  Decree  of  6th  March,  1816,  whereby  Vaccina- 
tion was  made  obligatory  under  penalty  of  fine  and  im- 
prisonment. 

Subsequently,  the  law  was  modified,  but  never  relaxed. 
Whilst  the  rite  was  obligatory,  it  was  offered  gratuitously, 
and  public  vaccinators,  usually  parish  clerks  and  mid- 
wives,  were  appointed  throughout  the  land,  and  stimulated 
to  exertion  by  special  rewards.  Vaccination  was  made  a 
condition  of  admission  to  school,  and  was  placed  by  the 
clergy  on  a  level  with  baptism  and  confirmation.  Where- 


412  VACCINATION. 


fore,  in  course  of  time,  it  has  come  to  pass  that  Sweden 
is  described  as  "  the  best  vaccinated  country  in  the  world." 
To  this  result  the  recognised  interest  of  the  Swedish 
clergy  in  medical  practice  largely  contributed.  They 
were  not  slow  to  perceive  a  fresh  line  of  business  in  vac- 
cination. Archbishop  Lindblom,  among  others,  was  ex- 
tremely zealous  in  promoting  the  practice  in  his  diocese, 
and  from  a  correspondence  between  the  Consistory  of 
Upsala  and  the  Medical  Board,  it  appears  that  the  com- 
petition between  the  physicians  and  the  parsons  was 
severe.  The  Consistory  complained  that  the  rewards  for 
vaccination  energy  were  more  liberally  bestowed  on 
medical  men  than  on  the  deserving  clergy,  and  that  it 
was  unfair  to  insist  on  the  clergy  taking  out  a  license  to 
vaccinate,  ending  with  the  reproach  that  the  mishaps  of 
some  medical  men  had  so  alarmed  the  people  in  certain 
districts,  that  very  few  were  willing  to  avail  themselves 
of  the  wonderful  prophylactic.  The  Board  replied,  that 
they  were  aware  that  mistakes  had  occurred  through  the 
use  of  spurious  cowpox,  as  proved  by  the  outbreak  of 
smallpox  afterwards ;  but,  at  the  same  time,  what  better 
check  could  be  devised  on  incompetent  practitioners  than 
a  medical  license  ?  The  right  of  the  clergy  to  vaccinate 
was  not  contested,  but  only  that  they  should  possess  some 
recognised  qualification.  The  extent  of  the  ecclesiastical 
operations  in  cowpox  appears  from  the  return  of  the 
Archbishopric  of  Upsala,  which  showed  that  from  1804 
to  the  end  of  1810  there  were  33,298  persons  vaccinated, 
of  whom  7,025  were  inoculated  by  clergy,  20,000  by 
church  officers,  and  6,273  by  medical  men  and  others.  It 
was  by  the  clergy  and  the  doctors  that  the  project  of 
compulsion  was  initiated.  In  a  letter  from  the  Medical 
Board  to  the  King  in  1810,  complaint  was  made  that 
"  the  public  in  Sweden  do  not  in  all  places  manifest  the 
care  and  zeal  which  might  be  expected  from  sensible  and 
tender  parents  in  applying  for,  or  allowing  to  be  applied, 
the  precious  means  of  salvation  provided  for  their 
children's  good  looks  and  future  health."  In  1814,  the 
same  Board  wrote  that  "  several  of  the  Bishops  who  take 


SWEDEN,  DENMARK  AND  ICELAND.  413 

the  deepest  interest  in  the  spread  of  vaccination,  have  ex- 
pressed their  conviction  that  certain  well-devised  penalties 
have  become  as  necessary  as  regards  the  ignorant  masses 
as  encouragements  are  useful";  and  as  late  as  1815,  the 
Board  had  to  testify  against  the  "sluggishness  and  in- 
difference prevalent  among  the  less  enlightened  classes. 

Compulsion  was,  therefore,  enacted  in  1816  to  over- 
come the  inertia  of  the  lower  orders,  the  mass  of  the 
people  who  at  all  times  yield  the  largest  crop  of  smallpox. 

"  Smallpox  was  exterminated  in  Sweden  by  vaccina- 
tion," is  a  common  saying.  Moore,  in  his  History  of 
Vaccination,  published  in  1817,  after  describing  the 
various  measures  taken,  observed — 

It  is  superfluous  to  add,  that  by  such  a  concurrence  of  virtuous 
exertions,  Smallpox  was  quickly  suppressed  in  Sweden. 

Ere  proceeding  to  inquire  whether  smallpox  was  thus 
suppressed,  I  would  call  attention  to  the  hands  by  which 
vaccination  was  administered  in  Sweden.  It  is  the 
custom  at  this  day  to  describe  vaccination  as  a  delicate 
operation,  and  to  attribute  subsequent  smallpox  to  some 
irregularity  or  defect  in  its  performance ;  and  yet  here 
we  are  asked  to  contemplate  a  whole  nation  delivered 
from  smallpox,  the  vaccinators  being  chiefly  priests, 
clerks,  and  midwives.  What  does  it  mean  ?  Is  it  that 
any  sort  of  vaccination  is  good  when  smallpox  does  not 
follow,  and  that  any  sort  is  bad  when  smallpox  does 
follow  ?  If  smallpox  had  not  ceased  out  of  the  land, 
would  it  then  have  been  said,  "  What  wonder,  consider- 
ing the  character  of  the  vaccinators  "  ? 

To  the  assertion  that  smallpox  in  Sweden  was  extermi- 
nated by  vaccination,  the  answer  is  an  unqualified  con- 
tradiction. It  is  not  true ;  it  is  demonstrably  untrue. 
Smallpox  was  declining  in  Sweden  before  vaccination 
was  heard  of,  and  the  fall  continued  irrespective  of  its 
influence.  Look  at  the  figures.  Here  we  have  the  re- 
turns of  smallpox  mortality  in  Sweden  during  the  last 
sixteen  years  of  the  past,  and  the  first  sixteen  years  of 
the  current  century,  up  to  the  time  when  vaccination  was 
made  compulsory— 


414 


VACCINATION. 


Year. 

1785  

Deaths 
from 
Smallpox. 

.   .  5,077 

Year. 
1801 

Deaths 
from 
Smallpox. 

6  057 

1786  

671 

1802 

1,533 

1787 

1,771 

1803 

1  464 

1788  .   . 

5,462 

1804 

1  460 

1789  

6,764 

1805 

1,090 

1790 

5  893 

1806 

1  482 

1791  . 

3  101 

1807 

2  119 

1792  

1  939 

1808 

1  814 

1793  

2,103 

1809 

2  404 

1794 

3  964 

1810 

824 

1795 

6  740 

1811 

698 

1796  

4  503 

1812 

404 

1797  

1  733 

1813 

547 

1798 

1  357 

1814 

308 

1799  

3  756 

1815 

472 

1800  

12  032 

1816 

690 

Total.  . 

.  66,866 

Total 

.  23.376 

Thus  we  see  the  process  of  subsidence,  with  alternations 
from  year  to  year,  with  the  reduction  of  two-thirds,  from 
66,866  in  the  former  to  23,376  in  the  latter  series  of  years. 

It  will  be  said,  of  course,  that  vaccination  was  intro- 
duced into  Sweden  in  1801.  True,  but  the  introduction 
of  vaccination  was  one  thing,  and  its  diffusion  over  the 
nation  another.  It  was  a  section  of  the  people  least 
likely  to  be  affected  with  smallpox  who  welcomed  and 
practised  vaccination ;  and  however  energetic  and  suc- 
cessful they  might  be  in  their  promotion  of  the  new  rite, 
their  efforts  were  limited  to  thousands  among  millions. 
All  the  while  smallpox  was  declining,  and  they  took  the 
decline  for  encouragement,  and  began  to  cry  out,  "  See  ! 
see  what  we  are  doing  ! "  The  enactment  of  compulsory 
and  gratuitous  vaccination  in  1816  was  an  open  confession 
that  the  lower  classes  remained  to  be  dealt  with,  that  is 
to-say,  the  very  people  among  whom  smallpox  had  its 
stronghold.  There  are  tribes  whose  priests  profess  to 
bring  rain,  and  drive  away  sickness  with  their  enchant- 
ments ;  but  if  showers  had  begun  to  descend,  and  the  sick 
to  recover,  ere  their  assistance  was  invoked,  it  would  be 


SWEDEN,  DENMARK  AND  ICELAND.  415 

hard  to  convince  even  the  credulous  that  the  desired 
relief  was  due  to  their  subsequent  magic.  But  it  is 
precisely  in  the  subsequent  magic  of  the  vaccinators  that 
we  are  asked  to  believe  when  told  that  vaccination  drove 
smallpox  out  of  Sweden.  It  was  going  out  before  vacci- 
nation was  called  in,  and  kept  going  out  all  the  same 
when  the  vaccinators  plied  their  enchantments.  Happily, 
patient  Nature  holds  her  way  unprovoked  by  human 
quackeries.  Not  even  to  confute  impostors  does  she 
reverse  for  an  instant  her  impartial  operations. 

But,  although  deaths  from  smallpox  fell  off  so  rapidly, 
there  was  no  correspondent  improvement  in  the  public 
health.  Smallpox  was  merely  replaced  by  other  forms 
of  disease.  Thus,  the  death-rate  of  Sweden  per  1,000  for 
seventy  years,  stands  as  follows — 


Decade.  Deaths. 

1749—1758  ....  27-76 

1759—1768 27-38 

1769—1778  .      .   29-22 


Decade.  Deaths. 

1789—1798 25-56 

1799—1808 26-46 

1809—1818  .      .  27-63 


1779_1788 26-52 

Moreover,  smallpox  mortality,  whilst  rapidly  decreas- 
ing before  the  enactment  of  compulsory  vaccination,  has 
since  been  slowly  increasing.  Thus — 


Years  before        Average  annual 
Compulsion,     smallpox  mortality. 

1756—1775 5,480 

1776—1795  ....  4,617 
1796—1815   2,303 


Years  after          Average  annual 

Compulsion.  smallpox  mortality. 

1816—1835  ....      450 

1836—1855 577 

1856—1875 1,031 


We  therefore  see  that  while  Jenner  and  his  friends 
were  boasting  of  their  achievements  in  Sweden,  they  had 
to  account  for  the  fall  in  smallpox  before  their  interven- 
tion, and  for  its  continued  decline  ere  their  intervention 
was  operative;  and,  moreover,  to  answer  the  question, 
What  is  the  profit  of  salvation  from  smallpox  if  death 
ensue  from  other  causes  ?  It  is,  however,  to  be  observed 
that  such  large  considerations  were  outside  the  scope  of 
Jenner's  intelligence.  There  was  smallpox,  and  there  was 
vaccination,  his  invention,  the  infallible  preventive  of 
smallpox,  and  he  saw  nothing  beyond.  His  self-love  was 
implicated  in  the  defence  of  vaccination,  and  any  story 


416 


VACCINATION. 


in  its  favour  was  accepted  as  true,  and  proclaimed  abroad,, 
whilst  anything  to  its  discredit  was  resented  as  a  personal 
affront,  or  denounced  as  wilful  and  diabolic  falsehood.  As 
for  statistics,  he  had  no  capacity.  Baron  says,  "  Neither 
Dr.  Jenner's  previous  education  nor  his  habits  gave  him  a 
relish  for  any  of  the  branches  of  pure  science ;  and  he 
seemed  to  have  a  peculiar  horror  of  arithmetical  questions, 
and  was  often  jocular  on  this  defect  in  his  nature."* 
This  inability  to  calculate  goes  far  to  account  for  the 
absurdity  of  many  of  his  statements  concerning  the 
miraculous  effects  of  vaccination  among  populations  where 
only  two  or  three  per  cent,  had  been  operated  upon ;  and 
who,  therefore,  must  have  vicariously  delivered  the  re- 
mainder from  smallpox.  To  an  intellect  thus  defective, 
the  introduction  of  vaccination  to  Sweden  was  the  vacci- 
nation of  the  Swedes ;  the  decline  of  smallpox  was  its- 
suppression ;  and  its  suppression  was  the  consequence  of 
vaccination.  But  the  excuse  that  is  available  for  Jenner 
does  not  serve  those  who  cannot  plead  his  congenital  de- 
fect, and  are  satisfied  to  repeat  his  preposterous  assertions. 
Smallpox  kept  declining  in  Sweden  until  the  decade 
(1841-50)  when  the  annual  average  of  deaths  per  million 
fell  to  212.  The  variations  in  the  mortality  in  single 
years  are  remarkable.  Here  are  thirteen  years  when  the 
deaths  were  under  a  hundred — 


1821 
1822 
1823 
1829 
1842 


37 
11 
39 
53 

58 


1843 
1844 
1845 
1846 


1847 
1848 
1855 
1856 


13 
71 
41 
52 


On  the  other  hand,  here  are  eighteen  years  when  the 
deaths  were  over  a  thousand — 


1825 

....  1,243 

1851  .  .  . 

2,488 

1867  .. 

.  1,061 

1833 

....  1,145 

1852  .  .  . 

1,534 

1868  .. 

.  1,429 

1834 

1,049 

1858  ... 

1,289 

1869  .. 

.  1,474 

1838 

....  1,805 

1859  ... 

1,470 

1873  .. 

.  1,122 

1839 

....  1,934 

1865  ... 

1,336 

1874  .. 

.  4,063 

1850 

....  1,376 

1866  ... 

1,217 

1875  .. 

.  2,019 

Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  ii.  p.  293. 


SWEDEN,  DENMARK  AND  ICELAND.  417 

The  death-rate  from  smallpox,  which  fell  to  212  per 
million  in  1841-50,  rose  to  862  per  million  in  1851-60,  to 
867  per  million  in  1861-70,  and,  owing  to  the  epidemic 
of  1873-74,  the  worst  in  Sweden  since  1801,  the  last 
decade,  1871-80,  will  exhibit  a  higher  average. 

In  presence  of  these  statistics,  it  is  fair  to  repeat  the 
inquiry,  "  Why  was  smallpox  declining  before  vaccination 
was  introduced ;  and  why  has  smallpox  revived  and  in- 
creased in  '  the  best  vaccinated  country  in  Europe'?" 

Again,  too,  I  must  call  attention  afresh  to  the  fact  of 
the  irrelevant  influence  of  smallpox  upon  the  national 
mortality.  Mr.  P.  A.  Siljestrom  has  published  a  diagram 
of  the  course  of  mortality  in  Sweden  from  1774  to  1878, 
with  the  part  smallpox  has  played  in  that  mortality,  from 
which  it  is  manifest  (to  all  who  choose  to  use  their  own 
eyes)  that  the  action  of  smallpox  as  a  destroyer  of  life 
has  been  wildly  exaggerated.*  Bad  years  of  smallpox 
are  not  years  of  a  high  death-rate,  nor  are  years  with 
little  smallpox  years  of  a  low  death-rate.  When  small- 
pox is  prevalent  it  appears  to  replace  other  forms  of  dis- 
ease, and  when  not  prevalent,  to  be  replaced  by  diseases 
of  greater  fatality.  Wherefore,  argues  Mr.  Siljestrom — 

Of  what  use  is  it  to  the  public  that  a  smaller  number  of  citizens 
die  annually  from  Smallpox  (supposing  that  this  result  is  brought 
about  by  Vaccination),  if  an  equally  large  number,  nevertheless, 
die  from  other  diseases  ?  We  can  see  no  further  advantage  in  it 
than  there  would  be  in  a  battle,  if  none  of  the  men  fell  before  the 
fire  of  the  artillery,  but  all  the  more  died  from  the  fire  of  the  line. 
To  the  individual  it  may  possibly  be  more  agreeable  to  die  of  any 
other  disease  than  Smallpox,  and  it  ought,  therefore,  to  be  allowed 
to  everyone  to  save  himself,  through  Vaccination,  or  any  other 
lawful  means,  from  an  eventuality  which  he  fears  ;  but  this  cannot 
possibly,  in  itself,  be  regarded  as  the  business  of  the  State. 

Sweden  is  a  large  country,  and  its  diseases  must  be 
subject  to  many  local  variations ;  but  Stockholm,  repre- 
senting a  compact  population,  exhibits  much  the  same 
phenomena.  In  some  years  of  last  century  the  city  was 

*  Tables  relative  to  Vaccination  in  Sweden,  1774-1778.  London 
Society  for  the  Abolition  of  Compulsory  Vaccination. 

27 


418  VACCINATION. 


severely  afflicted  with  smallpox,  as  the  deaths  in  these 
years  show — 


1778 639 

1783  .      .  714 


1784  ....  411  1795   ....  447 


1787   .      .  414  1800   .      .   703 


These  years  were  the  worst ;  there  were  variations  such 
as  these — 

1780  ....  14        I        1785   ....   20        I        1797  ....   13 
1782 12        I        1793 22        |        1798 12 

As  in  Sweden  at  large,  so  in  Stockholm,  a  fall  in  small- 
pox had  set  in,  and  was  continued  into  the  new  century, 
until  years  appeared  without  a  single  death ;  for  which 
vaccination  had  the  credit,  and  the  disease  was  proclaimed 
"  stamped  out,"  none  dreaming  of  reverse  ahead.  By  and 
by  it  began  to  revive,  and  deaths  were  thus  registered — 


1857 319 

1865  ....  273 


1866  ....   157  1871   ....   113 

1870  ....     96  1873  ....  191 


And  then  came  the  dreadful  epidemic  of  1874,  when 
1,191  perished,  and  317  in  1875. 

Thus,  in  two  years,  1,382  perished  in  a  population  of 
150,000— a  death-rate  of  7,916  per  million— against  2,430 
per  million  in  London  during  the  memorable  epidemic 
of  1871 ;  the  severest  outbreak  of  smallpox  in  the  century 
in  "the  best  and  most  vaccinated  population  in  Europe!" 

Under  examination,  the  case  for  vaccination  in  Sweden 
altogether  disappears.  By  Mr.  P.  A.  Siljestrom  the  exa- 
mination has  been  conducted  with  a  precision,  a  thorough- 
ness, and  a  judicial  temper  that  leave  nothing  to  desire. 
His  treatise  was  translated  into  English  by  Miss  Frederica 
Rowan,  and  published  in  1875,  under  the  title  of  "  The 
Vaccination  Question :  an  Essay  towards  determining  the 
Boundaries  within  which  a  Scientific  Theory  may  right- 
fully claim  to  have  effect  given  it  by  Legislation ;"  and  a 
skilful  abridgment  was  produced  by  Prof.  F.  W.  Newman; 
but  the  original,  which  extends  to  no  more  than  104 
pages,  should  be  studied  by  whoever  is  seriously  in- 
terested in  the  vaccination  question.  Sweden,  through 
the  possession  of  a  long  series  of  vital  statistics,  offers 
special  facilities  for  a  comprehensive  study  of  the  phe- 


SWEDEN,  DENMARK  AND  ICELAND.  419 

nomena  of  smallpox;  and  in  Mr.  Siljestrom's  treatise, 
we  have  veracity  with  good  sense,  and  science  with 
philosophy,  instead  of  the  inadequate  and  catchpenny 
stuff  current  in  this  country  as  "  truth  about  vaccination." 

In  Finland,  the  story  of  vaccination  is  much  the  same 
as  in  Sweden,  with  the  difference  that  there  was  no 
natural  subsidence  of  smallpox  to  be  placed  to  its  credit. 
Wherefore,  as  concerns  Finland,  it  is  the  habit  of  vaeci- 
nators  to  preserve  a  discreet  silence,  the  facts  not  tending 
to  edification  in  the  Jennerian  faith. 

A  curious  evidence  of  the  simple  trust  with  which  the 
cowpox  revelation  was  received  in  certain  countries,  is 
found  in  an  ordinance  issued  in  Finland  constituting 
smallpox  after  vaccination  a  proof  of  imposture  on  the 
part  of  the*  vaccinator.  The  ordinance  ran  thus — 

That  the  Inoculator  or  Vaccinator  whose  patients,  within  a 
shorter  or  longer  time  after  having  by  him  been  inoculated  or 
vaccinated,  shall  prove  to  have  been  attacked  by  natural  Smallpox, 
with  deadly  result  or  other  serious  consequence,  shall  without 
pardon  be  declared  unworthy  of  all  further  right  to  reward  or 
confidence,  and  morever,  be  impeached  for  due  punishment  on 
account  of  dishonest  and  unprofessional  behaviour. 

Under  such  a  law  (no  severer  than  many  which  enact 
punishment  where  the  buyer  does  not  obtain  from  the 
seller  what  he  gives  his  money  for)  how  would  it  fare 
with  the  legion  who  now  practise  vaccination  ?  But  I 
am  reminded  that  vaccinators  no  longer  undertake  to 
preserve  their  patients  from  smallpox,  but  only  to  keep 
it  off  until  it  comes,  and  then  to  make  it  milder. 

Vaccination  was  introduced  to  Denmark  at  the  same 
time  as  Sweden,  and  was  made  compulsory  in  1810.  As 
in  Sweden,  smallpox  was  falling  off,  and,  as  in  Sweden, 
the  vaccinators  were  loud  in  their  outcry  over  their 
success;  but  their  claim  was  absurd.  The  population  of 
Denmark  in  1801  was  925,680,  and  up  to  1810  no  more 
than  118,782  persons  had  been  vaccinated,  whilst  the 
births  during  the  same  period  were  283,905.  It  was, 
therefore,  assumed  that  the  vaccination  of  less  than  a 
tenth  of  the  population  in  eight  years  had  reduced  and 


420 


VACCINATION. 


extinguished  smallpox  among  the  unvaccinated  nine- 
tenths  !  Where  there  is  a  disposition  to  believe,  anything 
may  pass  for  credible. 

Subsequently  to  1801  there  was  little  smallpox  in 
Copenhagen,  and  from  1811  to  1823  not  a  death  from  the 
disease  was  recorded ;  but  in  1824  smallpox  reappeared ; 
and  in  1835  there  were  434  deaths  in  the  city ;  when  it 
began  to  be  admitted  that  vaccination  did  not  prevent 
smallpox,  and  that  revaccination  was  necessary  for  com- 
plete protection ;  but,  if  requisite,  how  was  the  miraculous 
extinction  of  the  disease  by  the  primary  vaccination  of 
less  than  a  tenth  of  the  population  in  the  early  years  of 
the  century  to  be  accounted  for  ? 

Here  we  have  the  record  of  Copenhagen  smallpox  for 
seventy-five  years,  1801-75 — 


Years. 

1801-10 
1811-20 
1821-30 
1831-40 


Deaths. 

.  639 

".  119 

.  568 


Annual 
Average. 

Years. 

Deaths. 

Annual 
Average. 

.  64 

1841-50 

....    245 

.  ...  24 

— 

1851-60 

.  .  .  .  160 

.  ...  16 

.  12 

1861-70 

....   168 

16 

.  56 

1871-75 

.  ...  518 

103 

Thus  the  number  of  deaths  in  the  five  years,  1871-75, 
was  nearly  equal  to  the  deaths  in  the  preceding  thirty 
years,  1841-70 ;  whilst  at  the  same  time  the  more  or  less 
smallpox  had  no  apparent  influence  in  raising  or  lower- 
ing the  general  mortality. 

Iceland,  as  a  dependency  of  Denmark,  is  often  cited  as 
evidence  for  the  virtue  of  vaccination.  Speaking  in  the 
House  of  Commons  recently,  Mr.  T.  W.  Evans  proclaimed, 
"  Vaccination  has  extinguished  smallpox  in  Iceland ! 
There  has  not  been  a  case  in  the  island  for  thirty  years." 
Could  aught  be  more  conclusive  ?  and  the  assertion  is 
re-asserted  with  triumph :  yet,  under  examination,  we 
shall  see  the  statement  and  the  inference  vanish  like 
smoke. 

First,  the  absence  of  smallpox  from  Iceland  for  series 
of  years  was  nothing  uncommon.  Iceland's  history  is 
singularly  copious  and  accurate;  and  from  Schleisner's 
Iceland  from  the  point  of  view  of  Medical  Science, 


SWEDEN,  DENMARK  AND  ICELAND. 


421 


Copenhagen,  1849.  we  have  the  following  list  of  small- 
pox epidemics  during  five  hundred  years— 

1707-9  —A  dreadful  epidemic  by 
importation  —  18,000 
died. 

1742 — A  small  epidemic  from 
case  brought  in  Dutch 
vessel. 

1762-3 — A  mild  epidemic. 

1785— A  small  epidemic  — 73 
deaths. 

1786— Epidemic— 1237  deaths. 

1787 — Epidemic— 113  deaths. 

1839-40  —  Smallpox  again 
brought  to  Iceland, 


1347 — A  great  epidemic. 

1380— Ditto. 

1430— Terrible  epidemic— 8000 
deaths. 

1511 — A  great  epidemic. 

1555— Ditto. 

1574— Ditto. 

1580 — A  kind  of  variolous  dis- 
ease. 

1590 — Smallpox  epidemic. 

1616-17 — Ditto  by  importation. 

1632 — Smallpox  epidemic. 

1636— Ditto. 

1655— Ditto. 

1658— Ditto. 

1670-1— Varioloid  and   Small- 


but  prevented  from 
spreading  by  strict 
quarantine. 


pox. 

From  this  list  it  will  be  seen  that  for  centuries  Iceland 
has  had  long  terms  of  immunity  from  smallpox.    Thus — 


Dates.  Immunity. 

1347  to  1380  33  years. 

1380  „  1430 50   „ 

1430  „  1511  ....  81   „ 

1511     1555  .   .  44 


Dates.  Immunity. 

1671    to    1707  ....  36  years. 

1709     „     1742  ....  33      „ 

1787     „     1839 52      „ 


Inasmuch  then  as  vaccination  could  have  nothing  to 
do  with  the  years  of  immunity  in  former  times,  on  what 
ground  of  reason  can  vaccination  be  set  forth  as  the 
cause  of  immunity  at  this  day  ?  Schleisner  observes — 

Since  1306  Smallpox  has  been  epidemic  in  Iceland  nineteen 
times,  and  has  always  been  brought  in  either  by  French,  English, 
Dutch,  or  Danish  ships.  In  early  times  it  frequently  caused  a 
terrible  mortality,  as  in  1707,  when  18,000  out  of  a  population  of 
50,000  perished ;  and  in  1430,  when  8000  are  said  to  have  died.  In 
later  years  its  violence  has  diminished  in  consequence  of  the 
introduction  of  Vaccination.  In  1785-6-7,  its  last  attack  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  only  1425  persons  died. 

Very  good;  but  in  1785-87,  vaccination  was  unknown; 
and  as  the  epidemics  of  1742  and  1762  are  recorded  by 
Schleisner  as  "  small "  and  "  mild  "  respectively,  while  so 
early  as  1580  one  is  described  as  "a  kind  of  variolous 


422  VACCINATION. 


disease,"  it  is  evident  that  vaccination  could  have  as  little 
to  do  with  making  "  smallpox  milder  "  as  with  the  long 
terms  of  immunity  which  Iceland  has  enjoyed. 

In  an  appeal  by  Mr.  William  Morris  on  behalf  of  the 
Icelanders,  threatened  with  famine  in  1882  he  observed — 

Lastly,  the  Measles,  which  has  not  been  in  Iceland  for  thirty-six 
years,  and  which  falling  on  a  people  not  used  to  it,  is  a  deadly  and 
not  a  trivial  disease,  has  attacked  Reykjavik,  where  half  the  people 
are  down  with  it,  and  many  have  died,  and  it  is  now  spreading 
over  the  island. 

Measles  absent  from  Iceland  for  thirty -six  years! 
Supposing  there  were  some  dodge  against  measles  corre- 
sponding to  vaccination  against  smallpox,  would  not  the 
exemption  in  every  year  up  to  the  thirty-sixth  have 
been  ascribed  to  its  efficacy  ? 

Dr.  Garth  Wilkinson  relates  that  in  1866  when  stand- 
ing on  the  Lawrock,  where  the  Althing  was  held,  Dr. 
Hjaltalin,  Medical  Inspector  of  Iceland,  told  him — 

When,  in  1000  A.D.,  Christianity  was  first  introduced  into  Iceland, 
the  heathen  party  in  the  Althing  credited  the  wrath  of  their  gods 
with  a  volcanic  eruption  which  broke  out  on  a  neighbouring  farm. 
Snorri,  the  great  Icelandic  historian,  being  present,  asked,  "What 
then  was  it  that  made  the  gods  angry  when  the  older  lava  was  on 
fire  ?  "  It  clearly  was  not  Christianity  then.  He  carried  the  day 
against  the  gods  by  this  common-sense  question,  and  Christianity 
became  the  law  of  the  land. 

Somewhat  parallel  with  this  history  is  the  claim  made  for  the 
extirpation  of  Smallpox  by  Vaccination  in  Iceland.  It  is  a  case  of 
ante  hoc  pricking  the  windbag  of  post  hoc,  and,  d  fortiori,  of 
propter  hoc.'1' 

Whilst  thus  the  Icelandic  Vaccination  Bubble  is  burst, 
it  remains  to  be  observed  that  if  vaccination  had  saved 
the  Icelanders  from  smallpox  it  could  only  have  been 
vicariously — as  in  so  many  instances  of  similar  salvation; 
for  during  the  first  half  of  the  present  century  no  more 
than  17,072  vaccinations  were  effected  in  a  population 
of  between  fifty  and  sixty  thousand  in  the  flux  of  birth 
and  death.  The  vaccinations  are  thus  recorded — 


*   Vaccination  Tracts,  Part  III.     No.  14.     London,  1878. 


SWEDEN,  DENMARK  AND  ICELAND.  423 

YEARS— 1804-15 VACCINATIONS—   1345 

1816-30 „  10,386 

1831-37 „  None. 

1838-50 „  5341 

Total,   ....   17,072  * 

There  is  much  of  the  like  order  of  "  facts  in  favour  of 
vaccination"  current  concerning  other  European  popu- 
lations, which  only  pass  muster  because  they  are  rarely 
subjected  to  criticism ;  because  vaccination  is  considered 
such  a  benign  invention  that  to  question  its  credentials 
is  wicked ;  and  because  it  is  held  that  if  even  some  of 
the  claims  made  for  it  are  touched  with  fable,  yet  their 
effect  on  the  popular  mind  is  so  clearly  for  good  in 
inspiring  confidence  and  overwhelming  occasional  mis- 
haps, that  it  is  inexpedient  to  be  over-scrupulous.  But, 
however  instructive  and  wholesome  may  be  the  exposure 
of  such  sophistications,  it  is  necessary  to  restrain  our- 
selves, and  for  the  remainder  of  my  Story  we  shall  keep 
to  English  ground. 

From  the  preceding  details  we  see  how  far  vaccination 
in  Sweden,  Denmark  and  Iceland  fell  short  of  the  claims 
made  for  it  by  Jenner  and  his  successors.  Jenner,  it  is 
true,  died  in  1823,  before  the  more  pronounced  refutations 
of  his  assertions  had  been  evolved,  but,  as  said,  it  is 
questionable  whether  he  ever  realised  that  the  names  of 
countries  stood  for  millions  of  men,  women  and  children 
whose  vaccination  could  only  be  overtaken  by  organised 
exertion  in  the  process  of  years.  His  various  boasts, 
therefore,  of  vaccinated  nations  and  exterminated  small- 
pox are  to  be  taken  as  proofs  of  defective  arithmetical 
capacity  and  of  that  scientific  imagination  which  runs 
with  possibility  and  matter-of-fact. 

*  Report  on  the  Vaccination  Act  (1867)  from  the  Select  Committee  of 
the  House  of  Commons,  1871.     P.  414. 


VACCINATION. 


CHAPTER  XXXII. 

NEWCASTLE   SMALLPOX:  A  COMMON   STORY. 

To  examine  the  statistics  of  the  larger  English  towns  in 
order  to  determine  whether  vaccination  has  had  any 
influence  on  the  abatement  of  smallpox,  would  involve 
us  in  discussion  interminable.  For  our  immediate 
purpose  it  may  suffice  to  select  three  examples ;  1st, 
NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE,  as  an  instance  of  a  common  story; 
2nd,  NORWICH,  as  an  instance  of  a  smallpox  epidemic ; 
and  3rd,  GLASGOW,  as  an  instance  of  smallpox  displaced 
and  replaced  as  a  factor  of  mortality. 

THE  NEWCASTLE   DISPENSARY. 

We  often  hear  of  "  the  statistics  of  the  Anti-Vaccin- 
ators ;"  to  which  the  summary  answer  is  that  Anti-Vac- 
cinators  have  no  statistics.  Their  statistics  are  the 
statistics  of  the  Vaccinators,  in  which  they  provide  the 
material  for  their  own  condemnation ;  which  is  probably 
the  reason  why  the  so-called  statistics  of  the  Anti- 
Yaccinators  are  so  intensely  disliked,  avoided,  and 
unanswered. 

The  Newcastle  Dispensary  in  1877  completed  its 
hundredth  year,  having  been  founded  in  1777,  and  Dr. 
Monteith  prepared  a  concise  history  of  the  institution, 
which  was  published  in  1878  by  order  of  the  Committee.* 
The  report  is  especially  valuable  as  a  record  of  the  com- 
parative incidence  of  disease  in  a  large  industrial  popula- 
tion, where,  if  anywhere,  smallpox  might  be  expected  to 
show  itself  in  severe  form.  In  1781  the  population  of 
Newcastle  was  estimated  at  23,000 ;  in  1821  it  had  risen 
to  41,794 ;  in  1851  to  87,784 ;  and  in  1871  to  128,443  ;  and 
through  all  these  years  and  changes,  the  Dispensary 

*  Report  of  the  Newcastle  Dispensary,  from  its  Foundation  in  1777. 
Printed  by  order  of  the  Committee.     Newcastle-upon-Tyne,  1878. 


NEWCASTLE  SMALLPOX :  A  COMMON  STORY.       425 

continued  in  active  operation,  the  percentage  of  the 
patients  to  the  population  being  maintained  with  remark- 
able uniformity.  It  is  needless  to  add  that  the  majority 
of  the  patients  have  been  from  the  ranks  of  the  poor, 
among  whom  smallpox  has  always  its  chief  seat.  As 
Dr.  Monteith  observes — 

They  are  the  class  intermediate  between  the  well-to-do  working- 
man  and  the  pauper.  The  state  of  distress  in  which  these  people 
continually  live  is  known  to  few.  The  patient,  when  visited  hy 
the  doctor,  is  usually  found  lying  in  "  poverty,  hunger,  and  dirt," 
and  the  treatment  of  the  cases  is  undertaken  in  circumstances  very 
unpropitious  to  success.  Medical  advice  and  medicine  are  not  the 
only  things  needed.  Good  food,  warmth,  and  judicious  nursing 
are  imperatively  required,  and  are  seldom  if  ever  attainable. 

Before  turning  to  the  Dispensary's  record  of  a  century 
of  smallpox,  it  may  be  well  to  observe  that  Variolation 
was  practised  in  Newcastle  with  great  assiduity,  and 
that  the  Dispensary  took  a  lead  in  the  business,  the 
surgeons  inoculating  any  one  who  applied.  Dr.  Monteith 
relates — 

By  the  year  1777  the  arguments  in  favour  of  Variolation  had  so 
far  triumphed  over  the  habits  and  prejudices  of  the  profession  that 
there  is  no  instance  mentioned  in  our  reports  of  any  medical  man 
in  Newcastle  opposing  it.  It  is  always  spoken  of  as  one  of  the  best 
established  facts  of  medical  science.  With  the  general  public  the 
case  was  different.  Their  prejudices  were  as  strong  as  ever,  and 
they  exhibited  a  horror  of  Variolation  which  would  satisfy  the  most 
ardent  Anti-Vaccinator.  To  combat  these  prejudices  various  means 
were  tried — sermons  from  the  pulpit,  pathetic  exhortations  in  the 
newspapers,  etc.  The  last  and  most  convincing  argument  consisted 
of  a  pecuniary  reward  to  parents  who  should  allow  their  children 
to  undergo  the  operation.  The  sum  offered  was  5s.  for  one  child, 
7s.  for  two,  9s.  for  three,  and  10s.  for  four,  and  upwards.  The  suc- 
cess of  this  expedient  was  remarkable.  Parents  came  flocking  in 
with  their  children  in  great  numbers.  Tempted  by  the  rewards, 
they  subjected  their  little  ones  to  an  operation  which,  unless  their 
sentiments  had  greatly  altered,  they  believed  to  be  barbarous  and 
hurtful  in  the  extreme,  and  a  clear  temptation  of  Providence. 
Variolation  on  these  terms  commenced  in  the  spring  of  1786  ;  and 
every  year  thereafter,  until  1801,  children  were  operated  on  at  the 
Dispensary  at  the  rate  of  over  200  per  annum.  In  1801  there  had 
been  in  all  3,268  operated  upon. 


426  VACCINATION. 

As  soon  as  Vaccination  came  into  vogue,  Variolation 
was  denounced  as  the  chief  cause  of  the  existence  of 
smallpox.  It  was  said  that  what  was  done  to  avert  the 
disease  from  the  individual  diffused  it  among  the  multi- 
tude. Vaccinators  long  maintained  that  they  could 
easily  exterminate  smallpox,  if  only  Variolators  would 
refrain  from  keeping  it  alive.  Variolation  gradually 
ceased,  and  was  formally  prohibited  in  1840,  and  by  and 
by  Vaccination  was  made  compulsory.  Nevertheless,  the 
confident  prophecy  of  the  Vaccinators  remains  unfulfilled, 
for  smallpox  is  not  exterminated. 

The  change  from  Variolation  to  Vaccination  at  the 
Newcastle  Dispensary  was  immediate.  Dr.  Monteith 
says — 

It  is  creditable  to  the  good  sense  and  enlightenment  of  the  Dis- 
pensary authorities  that  they  at  once  abolished  Inoculation  of 
Smallpox,  and  substituted  Vaccination  in  its  stead.  In  1801,  the 
first  year,  215  children  were  vaccinated.  The  annual  number 
rapidly  rose  until  it  reached  its  maximum  in  1813,  when  1,874 
were  vaccinated,  after  which  the  numbers  as  rapidly  declined. 

For  this  decline  various  reasons  were  assigned,  such 
as  the  increase  of  the  private  practice  of  vaccination,  and 
the  disposition  to  undervalue  every  benefit,  however 
great,  that  is  purely  eleemosynary.  It  is  forgotten  that 
Vaccination  fell  off  as  its  illusory  character  became  more 
and  more  manifest,  and  as  the  promises  made  on  its 
behalf  were,  one  and  all,  indisputably  belied.  When 
Jenner  died  in  1823,  he  passed  away  amid  indifference, 
if  not  contempt.  His  bubble  had  burst.  The  furore  for 
vaccination  witnessed  in  the  present  generation  is  by 
no  means  a  continuation  of  the  original  furore.  That 
passed  away.  Our  furore  is  a  revival,  dating  from  the 
popularity  of  sanitary  reform,  to  the  back  of  which  a 
new  generation  of  medical  men  contrived  to  attach 
vaccination ! 

In  the  hundred  years,  1777  to  1877,  the  Dispensary 
had  to  deal  with  2,616  cases  of  smallpox,  of  which  428 
terminated  fatally,  which  as  to  years  and  mortality  may 
be  thus  classified — 


NEWCASTLE  SMALLPOX  :  A  COMMON  STORY.       427 


Years. 

Cases. 

Deaths. 

Mortality 
per  100. 

1777  to  1802 

365 

90 

...       24-6 

1803   „  1827 

...       273 

57 

...       20-8 

1828   „  1852 

...       925 

...       152 

...       16-4 

1853   „  1877 

...    1,053 

...       129 

...       12-25 

2,61G       ...       428       ...       16-3 

The  progressive  reduction  in  mortality  is,  of  course, 
ascribed  to  vaccination  having  made  the  disease  milder ; 
though  the  report  informs  us  that  "  the  mortality  from 
smallpox  reached  its  highest  point — 33*3  per  cent,  in  the 
five  years  from  1802  to  1807,"  the  very  time  when 
enthusiasm  in  favour  of  the  Jennerian  rite  was  at  its 
acme.  We,  on  the  other  hand,  would  attribute  the 
lower  mortality,  as  did  Dr.  Andrew  Combe,  to  better 
modes  of  treatment,  even  neglect  being  preferable  to 
much  of  the  old-fashioned  regimen  for  smallpox.  Con- 
sidering the  figures,  Dr.  Monteith  observes — 

Of  Smallpox  I  desire  to  speak  with  circumspection,  for  in  New- 
castle Anti-Vaccinators  are  somewhat  rampant.  Figures,  however,, 
are  stubborn  things,  and  their  import  is  not  easily  explained  away. 
Like  the  vast  majority  of  medical  men,  I  have  always  firmly  be- 
lieved in  the  good  results  of  Vaccination.  Without  admitting  that 
my  faith  has  been  shaken  by  considering  these  statistics,  I  must 
confess  that  I  have  been  a  good  deal  disappointed  with  them.  I 
had  expected  to  find  this  terrible  disease  regularly  decimating  the 
population  every  year  until  the  epoch  of  Jenner's  discovery,  and 
afterwards  diminishing,  rapidly  and  steadily,  almost  to  nothing. 
These  figures  do  not  warrant  us  in  taking  so  sanguine  a  view  of 
the  matter. 

Whilst,  therefore,  we  observe  considerable  improvement  in  the 
figures,  I  am  of  opinion  that  they  leave  us  in  this  dilemma — either 
that  there  now  exists  a  grossly  exaggerated  impression  of  the  pre- 
valence and  fatality  of  Smallpox  in  former  times,  or  else  that  they 
had  begun  to  decrease  long  before  the  discovery  of  Vaccination,, 
the  beneficial  effects  of  which  must,  therefore,  have  been  at  least 
assisted  by  other  causes. 

Here  we  have  an  honourable  confession  from  out  the 
bonds  of  professional  prejudice,  and  a  reluctant  exposure 
of  the  legend  of  a  world  decimated  by  smallpox,  and 
ceasing  to  be  decimated  after  the  advent  of  Jenner. 
There  is  nothing  singular  in  the  Newcastle  evidence  that 


428  VACCINATION. 


has  awakened  distrust  in  the  mind  of  Dr.  Monteith.  Simi- 
lar evidence  is  found  wherever  facts  are  available.  The 
legend  to  the  contrary  has  become  established,  like  many 
other  legends,  by  dint  of  repetition,  until  those  who  ven- 
ture to  question  it  are  regarded  with  suspicion  and  dislike. 
The  Report  of  the  Newcastle  Dispensary  illustrates 
another  truth,  namely,  that  the  abatement  or  cessation 
of  smallpox  is  by  no  means  equivalent  to  a  reduction  of 
death;  that  evil  conditions  of  life  remaining  unchanged,  a 
fall  in  smallpox  is  compensated  for  by  a  rise  in  some  cog- 
nate form  of  zymotic  disease.  Thus  Dr.  Monteith  remarks: 

It  is  generally  said  by  the  opponents  of  Vaccination  that  the 
other  exanthemata  have  increased  since  its  introduction.  It  must 
be  allowed  that  our  figures  (probably  unreliable  as  general  data), 
give  some  support  to  this  supposition.  The  proportion  of  cases 
of  Scarlatina  in  the  five  years,  1827-32  was  4'3  per  cent.  It  has 
never  reached  that  high  limit  since ;  but  the  percentage  has  never 
fallen  below  2  in  the  last  thirty-five  years.  Mortality  has  also  in- 
creased to  an  alarming  extent.  At  one  time  so  low  as  2*5  per  cent., 
it  has  amounted  to  17  per  cent,  in  the  last  five  years.  Scarlatina 
is  now  by  far  the  most  fatal  disease  on  the  list,  with  the  exception 
of  Consumption. 

Of  Scarlatina,  the  Dispensary  record  stands  thus — 

Years.  Cases.  Deaths.  Mortality 

1777  to  1802   ...  355  33  ...  9-3 

1803  „  1827   ...  795  ...  30  ...  3'7 

...  1,856  ...  155  ...  8-3 

...  3,659  ...  567  ...  15'5 

6,665   ...   785   ...   11'7 

Of  Measles  it  is  said,  "the  disease  has  somewhat 
increased  in  numbers,  whilst  the  proportion  of  deaths  to 
•cases  has  not  varied  much."  Thus  the  record  stands — 

Years.  Cases.  Deaths.          Mortality 

1777  to  1802  ...  186  ...  16  ...  8'6 

1803  „  1827  ...  435  ...  22  ...  5-0 

1828  „  1852  ...  1,572  ...  83  ...  5-2 

1853  „  1877  ...  2,537  ...  123  ...  4-8 

4,730       244       5-1 


NEWCASTLE  SMALLPOX  :  A  COMMON  STORY,       429> 

Of  Whooping  Cough  it  is  observed  — 

The  death-rate  in  former  years  fluctuated  widely.  At  present  it 
appears  to  remain  stationary  at  a  figure  somewhat  above  the  aver- 
age of  the  century.  There  is  a  common  impression  that  Whooping 
Cough  is  a  disease  of  little  danger  and  no  importance,  but  the  fol- 
lowing table  shows  that  of  late  years  it  has  been  more  fatal  than 
Smallpox  or  Measles. 

Years.  Cases.  Deaths. 


1777  to  1802  ...  245  ...  22  ...  9'0 

1803   „  1827  ...  220  ...  23  ...  10'4 

1828   „  1852  ...  743  ...  112  ...  15*0 

1853   „  1877  ...  1,716  ...  241  ...  14-0 

2,924  398  13'6 

Smallpox,  Scarlatina,  Measles,  and  Whooping  Cough 
may  be  regarded  as  convertible  forms  of  infantile  zymotic 
disease.  Conditions  of  existence  remaining  equal,  one 
may  be  the  substitute  of  the  other,  maintaining  thereby 
a  common  death-rate.  Diarrhoea  is  sometimes  placed  in 
the  same  category  ;  and,  like  erysipelas,  it  is  to  a  large 
extent  a  consequence  of  vaccination.  It  should  never  be 
forgotten  that  vaccination  induces  a  constitutional  dis- 
turbance or  fever,  which  illness  is  offered  to  Nature  as  a 
propitiation  for  smallpox  ;  with  which  propitiation,  say 
the  vaccinators,  Nature  is  satisfied,  and  withholds  the 
infliction  of  smallpox.  Vaccination,  as  an  illness,  how- 
ever, is  frequently  attended  with  diarrhoea,  and  the 
increase  of  that  affection,  pari  passu,  with  the  increase 
of  infant  vaccination,  is  marked.  Thus  stands  the  record 
of  Diarrhoea  — 


Case,  Deaths. 

1777  to  1802  ...  1,390  ...  67  ...  4-8 

1803  „  1827  ...  1,529  ...  7  ...  '4 

1828  „  1852  ...  3,995  ...  43  ...  1-0 

1853  „  1877  ...  6,117  ...  362  ...  59 

13,031       ...     479       ...       3-6 
Dr.  Monteith  observes  — 

The  mortality  from  Diarrhoea  is  unfortunately  steadily  increas- 
ing, the  percentage  for  the  last  five  years,  1872-77,  being  the  highest 
on  record  —  viz.,  14*4.  The  majority  of  the  deaths  takes  place 
among  infants  ;  and  the  disease  is  produced  in  most  cases  by  the 


430  VACCINATION. 

ignorance  or  carelessness  of  mothers  in  giving  them  food  which  is 
not  fit  for  them.  But  why  this  should  he  the  case  now  any  more 
than  it  was  twenty  or  fifty  years  ago,  I  cannot  understand.  An 
increased  consumption  of  alcoholic  stimulants  in  later  times  has 
been  suggested  to  me  as  an  explanation. 

Any  explanation  is  welcome  that  will  preserve  vac- 
cination from  reproach,  yet  what  medical  man  is  ignorant 
of  the  fact  that  diarrhoea  is  one  of  the  commonest 
sequences  of  vaccination  ?  Nature  thus  endeavouring  to 
throw  off  the  effects  of  the  virus  infused  into  the  blood. 

Taking,  then,  these  five  diseases  in  the  order  of  their 
mortality,  they  range  thus — 

1777-1802     1803-1827       1828-1852         1853-1877  Total. 


Scarlatina,  • 

\  Cases, 

355 
33 

795 
30 

1,856 
155 

3,659 
567 

6,665 

•  785 

TV 

\  Cases,  1 

,390 

1,529 

3,995 

6,117 

13,031 

.Diarrhoea, 

>  Deaths, 

67 

7 

43 

362 

497 

Smallpox, 

(  Cases, 
(  Deaths, 

390 

273 

57 

925 
152 

1,053 
129 

2,616 
428 

Whooping- 

]  Cases, 

245 

220 

743 

1,716 

2,924 

Cough, 

(  Deaths, 

22 

23 

112 

241 

398 

Measles, 

(  Cases, 

186 
16 

435 

22 

1,572 

S3 

2,537 
123 

4,730 
244 

In  the  course  of  a  century  the  Newcastle  Dispensary 
had  dealt  with  a  total  of  250,637  cases,  of  which  no  more 
than  2,616  were  of  smallpox,  or  about  1  in  96.  The 
total  deaths  during  the  century  were  14,088,  of  which  no 
more  than  428  were  due  to  smallpox,  or  about  1  in  33 ; 
whilst  from  scarlatina  they  were  1  in  18,  from  diarrhoea 
1  in  30,  and  from  whooping-cough  1  in  35.  It  may  be 
said,  the  record  of  the  Dispensary  does  not  account  for 
the  population  of  Newcastle.  True ;  but  it  accounts  for 
the  lower  strata  of  the  population,  and,  therefore,  for  an 
excessive  proportion  of  smallpox.  The  complete  statistics 
of  the  city  would  exhibit  smallpox  as  a  still  lighter 
affliction.  And,  we  repeat,  there  is  nothing  singular 
about  the  record  of  the  Newcastle  Dispensary.  It  is  a 
common  story.  Whenever  we  get  out  of  the  region  of 
romance,  and  tread  the  ground  of  matter-of-fact,  it  is  to 
discover  that  the  wilder  horrors  and  ravages  of  smallpox 
have  been  originally  evolved  from  imagination,  and  are 
perpetuated  in  ignorance  from  hearsay. 


THE  NORWICH  EPIDEMIC— 1819.  431 

CHAPTER   XXXIII. 

THE  NORWICH  EPIDEMIC — 1819. 

I  HAVE  repeatedly  cautioned  my  readers  against  the 
common  assumption  that  the  London  smallpox  of  last 
century  was  the  measure  of  English  smallpox.  It  was 
not  so.  Smallpox  was  endemic  in  London,  whereas  it 
occurred  'as  an  occasional  epidemic  in  other  English 
towns,  and  was  almost  unknown  in  many  rural  districts. 
Moreover,  the  disease  was  not  allowed  to  die  out,  but 
was  diligently  cultivated  and  diffused  by  variolation. 
As  vaccination  was  introduced,  the  practice  of  variolation 
correspondently  ceased,  and  with  its  cessation  there  was 
an  abatement  of  smallpox,  which  abatement  was  unwar- 
rantably ascribed  to  vaccination.  How  much  of  the  small- 
pox of  last  century  was  due  to  variolation  it  is  impossible 
to  determine;  nor  would  it  be  safe  to  accept  the  assertions 
of  the  early  advocates  of  vaccination  on  the  point.  I 
apprehend  that  if  smallpox  were  something  desirable 
which  everyone  was  intent  on  catching,  it  would  be  dis- 
covered that  it  could  not  be  universally  caught,  and  that 
its  propagation  had  definite  limits;  and  it  is  not  impro- 
bable that  among  Londoners  the  limit  of  propagation 
was  closely  approached,  so  that  nearly  all  who  were  sus- 
ceptible contracted  the  disease.  What,  however,  I  wish 
to  enforce  is,  that  the  decline  in  the  prevalence  of  small- 
pox in  some  places  coincidently  with  the  introduction  of 
vaccination  was  largely  due  to  the  discontinuance  of 
smallpox  culture,  and  that  the  suppression  of  that  culture 
would  have  given  the  same  result.  Nor  let  it  be  for- 
gotten that  an  almost  world-wide  fall  in  smallpox  had 
set  in  toward  the  close  of  last  century,  which  the  vaccin- 
ators  attributed  to  their  prophylaxy  in  the  nineteenth. 
Miraculous  effects  are  frequently  asserted  where  mir- 
aculous causes  would  be  disowned. 

The  vital  statistics  of  last  century  are,  to  a  great  ex- 


432  VACCINATION. 


tent,  the  products  of  inference  and  conjecture,  and  more 
or  less  affected  by  the  purpose  and  bias  of  their  collectors; 
but  if  even  we  had  the  correct  mortalities  of  smallpox  in 
the  chief  centres  of  population, — such  as  York,  Hull,. 
Norwich,  Chester,  Coventry,  Bath,  Bristol,  Exeter,  and 
Plymouth — we  should  still  be  puzzled  to  separate  what 
was  due  to  insanitary  conditions  of  life  from  what 
was  due  to  the  artificial  induction  of  the  disease  by 
variolation.  It  has  been  said  that  the  18th  Century  did 
not  terminate  in  England  until  1830;  and  accepting  that 
liberal  allowance,  we  may  resort  to  an  interesting  record 
of  a  virulent  epidemic  in  Norwich  in  1819  for  some  light 
on  the  character  and  incidence  of  urban  smallpox  prior 
to  the  rise  of  such  great  communities  as  Liverpool,  Man- 
chester, Leeds,  Sheffield,  and  Birmingham.  The  account 
of  the  epidemic  was  written  by  John  Cross,  a  surgeon 
practising  in  Norwich.* 

In  those  days  Norwich  contained  a  population  of  about 
40,000.  The  city  was  accounted  salubrious,  and  small- 
pox was  little  known.  Cross  writes  that  "  in  1805,  after 
being  for  a  time  almost  extinct,  smallpox  prevailed  so 
much  in  Norwich  as  to  excite  some  attention."  The 
attention  excited  led  to  an  attempt  to  introduce  vaccina- 
tion. A  meeting  was  held  in  the  Guildhall,  16th  July, 
1805,  "  to  concert  measures  for  the  extermination  of  the 
disease,"  and  resolutions  were  passed  to  discourage  in- 
oculation with  smallpox,  and  "  to  substitute  immediate 
and  universal  vaccination  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  city 
and  its  hamlets."  This  outbreak  of  smallpox  and  vac- 
cination appears  to  have  subsided  together,  for  Cross- 
continues — 

After  being  absent  for  a  year  or  two,  Smallpox  was  again  intro- 
duced to  Norwich  by  an  individual  from  London,  and  spread  so 


*A  History  of  the  Variolous  Epidemic  which  occurred  in  Norwich  in  the 
year  1819,  and  destroyed  530  Individuals;  and  an  Estimate  of  the,  Pro- 
tection afforded  by  Vaccination,  and  a  Review  of  Past  and  Present 
Opinions  upon  Chickenpox  and  Modified  Smallpox.  By  John  Cross, 
Member  of  the  Royal  College  of  Surgeons  in  London.  London,  1820. 
Pp.  296 


THE  NORWICH  EPIDEMIC— 1819.  433 

extensively  among  those  whose  obstinacy  or  whose  prejudices  made 
them  resist  Vaccination,  that  203  deaths  from  Smallpox  were  re- 
corded in  the  Bills  of  Mortality  between  1807  and  the  end  of  1809. 
Smallpox  again  appeared  in  1813,  in  which  year  65  deaths  took 
place  ;  the  mortality  being  confined  to  so  small  a  number  by  the 
early  and  extensive  adoption  of  Vaccination  before  the  danger  was 
actually  at  hand.  From  the  year  of  1813,  it  may  be  said,  there 
was  no  Smallpox  in  Norwich  until  the  rise  of  the  epidemic  which 
I  propose  to  describe.  Not  a  death  from  the  disease  was  noticed 
for  four  years.  Indeed,  the  only  case  that  came  to  my  knowledge, 
during  the  time  specified,  was  the  servant  of  a  celebrated  public 
character,  who,  being  seized  with  Smallpox,  was  detained  in  Nor- 
wich, but  from  whom,  so  far  as  I  could  learn,  the  contagion  did 
not  extend. 

I  shall  presently  refer  to  the  number  of  vaccinations 
effected  in  Norwich,  and  to  their  influence  in  arresting 
smallpox.  What  I  would  now  draw  attention  to  is,  the 
comparative  rarity  of  smallpox  in  Norwich  in  those 
times.  Years  two,  three,  and  four  elapsed  without  a 
single  death  from  the  disease !  How  does  such  a  fact 
accord  with  the  common-place  of  vaccinators,  that  before 
the  advent  of  Jenner  the  people  of  England  were  decimat- 
ed with  srnall-pox,  and  that  40,000  perished  annually  ? 
When  we  press  for  evidence  for  these  extraordinary  state- 
ments, we  either  get  no  answer,  or  we  discover  that  the 
mortality  of  a  bad  year  of  London  smallpox  has  been 
multiplied  by  the  population  of  the  United  Kingdom,  thus 
yielding  the  astounding  total  of  40,000  victims.  Our 
reply  is,  that  there  is  no  warrant  whatever  for  this  con- 
version of  London  mortality  into  national  mortality ; 
that  London  was  unique  in  its  circumstances ;  and  that, 
setting  the  immense  rural  majority  aside,  even  in  the 
largest  cities,  such  as  Norwich,  years  passed  without  any 
deaths  from  smallpox. 

Vaccination  had  the  prestige  of  fashion,  and  the  lead- 
ing citizens  of  Norwich  were  philanthropic  and  scientific 
after  the  newest  lights,  and  whatever  was  accounted 
"  proper,"  they  were  intent  to  effect.  To  have  the  vulgar 
vaccinated  was,  however,  no  easy  matter.  Many  declined 
because  they  had  no  fear  of  smallpox.  What,  indeed, 
had  they  to  be  alarmed  about  ?  Moreover,  as  experience 
28 


434 


VACCINATION. 


advanced,  the  futility  and  danger  of  the  new  inoculation 
became  more  and  more  apparent.  It  began  to  be  known 
that  it  not  only  failed  to  avert  smallpox,  but  it  frequently 
induced  serious  illness,  permanent  injury,  and  sometimes 
death.  It  is  to  be  remembered  that  the  symptoms  of 
vaccination  were  watched  at  the  outset  of  the  practice 
with  keen  attention,  and  that  the  general  verdict, 
especially  of  mothers,  was  distinctly  adverse  to  its  harm- 
lessness.  That  such  was  the  common  judgment  was 
manifest  from  the  rapid  decline  of  the  early  furore  in  its 
favour,  and  its  contemptuous  neglect  by  the  mass  of  the 
people  until  revived  and  enforced  by  legislation.  As 
the  citizens  of  Norwich  would  not  be  vaccinated,  it  was 
determined  to  try  the  effect  of  bribery,  and  surgeon 
Kigby  in  1812  induced  the  court  of  guardians  to  offer  a 
reward  of  2s.  6d.  to  every  person  "  who  should  bring  a 
certificate  from  a  surgeon  of  having  gone  satisfactorily 
through  the  cowpox."  The  results  of  this  bribery  are 
set  forth  as  follows  by  Cross — 

511  received  the  award  in  1813 

47        „  „  1814 

11         ,,  „  1815 

348         „  „  1816 

The  larger  numbers  in  1813,  '16,  and  '19  were  due  to 
panic  and  pressure;  but  the  figures  may  be  taken  for  a 
graphic  representation  of  the  distrust  with  which  vac- 
cination was  regarded  after  ample  experience.  Of  course 
many  were  vaccinated  who  did  not  claim  the  parish 
half-crown;  and  at  the  end  of  1819  it  was  calculated  that 
10,000  in  Norwich  had  submitted  to  the  Jennerian  rite 
from  the  date  of  its  introduction  at  the  beginning  of  the 
century.  Thus  considerably  less  than  a  fourth  of  the 
inhabitants  were  what  is  called  "  protected." 

We  now  come  to  the  narrative  of  that  great  outbreak 
of  smallpox,  which,  says  Cross,  destroyed  more  lives  in 
less  time  in  Norwich  than  any  epidemic  since  the  Plague. 
It  is  almost  superfluous  to  state  that  the  disease  did  not 
originate  in  Norwich:  it  never  appears  to  originate  any- 
where: it  was  imported.  A  girl  travelling  with  her 


49  received  the  award  in  1817 

64         „  „  1818 

1402  1819 


THE  NORWICH  EPIDEMIC— 1819.  435 

parents  from  York  caught  the  infection  in  transit  at  a 
market-town,  and  as  soon  as  she  arrived  in  Norwich  was 
laid  up  with  the  disease. 

This  happened  [says  Cross]  in  the  latter  end  of  June,  1818;  and 
the  earliest  cases  of  Smallpox  that  were  seen  by  any  medical  man 
were  traced  to  this  origin.  I  have  been  able  to  ascertain  the 
different  families  by  which  the  disease  was  kept  up  during  the 
remainder  of  that  year,  but  it  extended  to  very  few,  and  proved 
fatal  in  only  two  instances.  A  druggist  inoculated  three  children 
in  January,  1819,  thus  helping  in  a  small  degree  to  spread  the 
contagion,  which  the  season  of  the  year  was  calculated  to  keep 
within  narrow  bounds.  Still  no  alarm  was  excited  ;  a  single  medi- 
cal man  only  was  acquainted  with  the  disease ;  and  the  cases  of 
Smallpox  were  so  few  until  the  latter  end  of  February  as  to  be 
scarcely  noticed.  At  this  time,  however,  the  disease  extended 
from  one  of  our  greatest  charity  schools  to  all  quarters  of  the  city. 
.  .  .  Comparatively  dormant  during  the  winter,  as  the  season 
became  milder  it  burst  upon  us  suddenly  and  unexpectedly,  con- 
tinuing its  work  of  devastation  for  three  or  four  months  with  un- 
diminishing  fury.  The  following  list  of  burials  taken  from  the 
Bills  of  Mortality  will  give  a  sufficiently  accurate  idea  of  the 
advance  and  decline  of  the  disease — 

Deaths  from        Deaths  from  Total 

1819.  Smallpox.         other  diseases.          of  deaths. 

January,  -  -  3  ...  61  ...  64 

February,  -  0  ...  71  ...  71 

March,      -  -  2  ...  68  ...  70 

April,        -  -  15  ...  61  ...  76 

May,         -  -  73  ...  63  ...  136 

June,        -  -  156  ...  70  ...  226 

July,         -  -  142  ...  61  ...  203 

August,     -  -  84  ...  63  ...  147 

September,  -  42  ...  96  ...  138 

October,    -  -  10  ...  63  ...  73 

November,  -  2  ...  62  ...  64 

December,  -  1  ...  83  ...  84 

530  822  1352 

The  greatest  mortality  occurred  in  June  when  43  were  buried  from 
Smallpox  in  one  week.  The  rapid  declension  of  the  disease  from 
that  period  is  obvious  from  the  above  table;  and  it  was  so  nearly 
extinct  at  the  end  of  the  year,  that  I  could  not  find  a  variolous 
patient  from  whom  ichor  could  be  procured  for  an  important  ex- 
periment. As  probably  one  in  six  of  all  who  were  affected  by  the 
epidemic  died  of  it,  I  am  convinced  it  is  not  far  from  the  truth  to 
assert  that  considerably  over  3000  individuals,  or  a  thirteenth  part 
of  the  whole  population  of  Norwich,  had  Smallpox  in  the  year  1819. 


436  VACCINATION. 


It  is  always  sound  policy  to  take  what  is  considered 
the  case  against  us  at  its  worst;  and  as  this  dreadful 
Norwich  epidemic  is  cited  as  evidence  of  what  is  possible 
in  the  absence  of  vaccination,  and  as  something  that 
opponents  of  vaccination  should  regard  as  conclusive 
against  them,  there  is  cause  to  give  it  special  atten- 
tion; and  the  more  so  as  the  leading  facts  are  well 
ascertained.  First,  however,  I  would  remark  that  I  have 
no  desire  to  minimise  the  horrors  of  smallpox:  it  is  a 
loathsome,  and,  because  preventible,  a  discreditable  dis- 
ease: but  neither  let  us  maximise  its  horrors,  but  try,  at 
least,  to  recognise  facts  in  their  true  dimensions. 

Five  hundred  and  thirty  died  in  Norwich  of  smallpox 
in  1819  of  3000  supposed  to  have  had  the  disease,  the 
deaths  being,  as  commonly  estimated,  one  in  five  or  one 
in  six  of  those  affected.  The  deaths  from  all  diseases  in 
Norwich  in  1819  were  1352— a  mortality  of  30  per  1000; 
a  high  rate,  but  by  no  means  uncommon  in  urban  popula- 
tions free  from  smallpox.  I  have  next  to  observe  that  if 
3000  had  smallpox,  there  were  37,000  who  escaped,  and  to 
ask,  How  did  they  escape  ?  By  what  means  were  they 
protected  ?  It  may  be  replied  that  a  fourth  of  them  were 
vaccinated ;  but  how  does  that  account  for  the  immunity 
of  30,000  unvaccinated  ?  The  10,000  vaccinations  re- 
puted to  have  been  effected  in  Norwich  from  the  begin- 
ning of  the  century  were  the  work  of  nearly  twenty 
years,  and  the  major  part  of  them  in  1819  must  have 
been  represented  by  adults  practically  out  of  the  range 
of  infection,  protected  not  by  vaccination,  but  by  their 
years. 

"  Protected  by  their  years !  What  do  you  mean  ? "  ex- 
claims a  reader. 

Precisely  what  I  say — that  in  the  Norwich  epidemic, 
as  in  variolous  epidemics  generally,  adults  are  compara- 
tively secure,  and  the  young,  and  especially  infants,  are 
the  victims.  In  Norwich,  in  1819,  scarcely  a  bread- 
winner, or  a  father  or  mother  was  laid  in  the  grave  slain 
by  smallpox. 

"  It  is  incredible  ! " 


THE  NORWICH  EPIDEMIC— 1819.  437 

It  is  incredible  simply  because  the  facts  of  smallpox 
are  persistently  overlooked.  Here  is  proof  of  the  in- 
credible in  a  statement  carefully  prepared  by  Cross  of 
the  ages  of  the  530  who  died  in  the  Norwich  epidemic — 

Under  two  years  of  age,   -  260 

Aged  from  two  to  four  years,    -  132 

four  to  six  years,  85 

six  to  eight  years,  26 

eight  to  ten  years,  17 

ten  to  fifteen  years,  5 

fifteen  to  twenty  years,  -                    2 

twenty  to  thirty  years,  2 

thirty  to  forty  years,  -         -           1 

530 

It  will  be  said,  as  a  matter  of  course,  that  if  these 
children  had  been  vaccinated  they  would  not  have 
perished;  but  the  answer  is  that  at  this  day  the  chief 
mortality  of  smallpox  is  among  the  vaccinated  young,  in 
whom  the  whole  virtue  of  the  rite  may  be  supposed  to 
abide  fresh  and  efficient.  Cross  was  an  enthusiastic  vac- 
cinator,  but  he  allows,  with  due  excuses,  that  the  vaccin- 
ated minority  contributed  a  certain  quota  to  the  sick  and 
the  dead,  and  that  the  ill  repute  of  vaccination  caused 
many  in  their  terror  to  resort  to  variolation,  and  thus  to 
incur  and  diffuse  the  mischief  of  which  they  stood  in 
dread.  Some  old  women  and  a  druggist  wTere,  he  says, 
responsible  for  four  or  five  hundred  of  these  creations  of 
smallpox  during  the  epidemic,  "  each  of  which  became  a 
centre  of  contagion." 

Age,  I  said,  constituted  the  chief  protection  from 
smallpox,  but  good  houses  and  good  fare  formed  another 
line  of  defence.  "  The  effects  of  the  Norwich  epidemic 
were  confined  almost  exclusively!'  says  Cross,  "  to  the  very 
•lowest  orders  of  the  people"  Moreover,  he  observes — 

The  disease  was  often  aggravated,  and  made  to  assume  its  worst 
characters,  by  the  most  injudicious  treatment.  The  prejudiced 
and  most  ignorant  being  the  principal  sufferers,  the  prescriptions 
of  old  women  were  more  listened  to  than  the  advice  of  medical 
men.  A  practice  kept  up  by  tradition  among  the  poor  of  the  city 


438  VACCINATION. 


for  above  a  century  was  revived,  in  spite  of  all  remonstrance,  as 
follows — 

"At  the  commencement,  to  set  the  object  before  a  large  fire  and 
supply  it  plentifully  with  saffron  and  brandy  to  bring  out  the  erup- 
tion ;  during  the  whole  of  the  next  stage  to  keep  it  in  bed  covered 
with  flannel,  and  even  the  bed-curtains  pinned  together  to  prevent 
a  breath  of  air.  To  allow  no  change  of  linen  for  ten  or  more  days, 
until  the  eruption  had  turned;  and  to  regard  the  best  symptom  to 
be  a  costive  state  of  the  bowels  during  the  whole  course  of  the 
disease." 

Such  were  the  means  by  which  the  horrors  of  the  epidemic  were 
aggravated.  The  old  nurses  triumphed  not  a  little  in  having  an 
opportunity  of  showing  their  skill  after  it  had  been  so  long  unexer- 
cised ;  nor  was  it  often  easy,  among  the  deluded  persons  in  whose 
families  this  affliction  occurred,  to  persuade  or  compel  them  to 
adopt  a  different  plan  of  treatment. 

Cross  described  several  cases  in  which  unquestionable 
vaccination  had  been  followed  by  unquestionable  small- 
pox. In  one  instance,  a  girl  of  eleven  years  of  age, 
correctly  vaccinated  in  both  arms,  perished  of  malignant 
smallpox,  whilst  her  unvaccinated  brother,  six  years  of 
age,  recovered  from  a  severe  attack.  Such  cases  in  1819 
were  treated  as  exceptional,  but  they  have  long  passed 
into  the  category  of  matter-of-course,  and  ceased  to  excite 
observation  or  surprise. 

Such  was  the  memorable  Norwich  epidemic.  How- 
ever dreadful,  it  was  in  no  wise  extraordinarily  dreadful. 
If  the  death-rate  was  raised  for  a  single  year,  it  would 
be  reduced  in  subsequent  years,  and  the  average  rate  re- 
covered that  accorded  with  the  common  obedience  of  the 
community  to  the  laws  of  health.  In  Nature  con- 
sequences are  equal,  and  any  temporary  aberration  is  in 
the  long  run  compensated  for.  If  vaccination  could  have 
kept  smallpox  from  Norwich,  the  citizens  would  have 
had  in  some  other  form  the  measure  of  disease  that  per- 
tained to  their  way  of  life. 

We  might,  moreover,  inquire,  whether  to  escape  an 
epidemic,  severe  as  that  of  1819,  it  would  have  been 
economical  to  put  40,000  people  through  the  pains  and 
perils  of  vaccine  fever.  Why  should  a  universal  afflic- 
tion be  incurred  to  avert  a  partial  one  ? — an  affliction 


SMALLPOX  DISPLACED  AND  REPLACED.  439 

confined  to  the  young  of  the  lower  orders.  The  vaccina- 
tion of  Norwich  from  1801  to  1819  would  have  cost  far 
more  sickness  and  death  than  did  the  smallpox  of  the 
same  years.  In  short,  if  vaccination  had  conferred  the 
immunity  claimed  for  it,  the  price  of  the  salvation  would 
have  been  in  prodigious  excess  of  its  value. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV. 

SMALLPOX  DISPLACED   AND  EEPLACED. 
DR.  WATT'S  DISCOVERY — GLASGOW,  1813. 

ADDRESSING  the  House  of  Commons  in  1878,  Sir  Thomas 
Chambers  said,  "  You  cannot  show  that  Vaccination  has 
reduced  deaths,  or  saved  a  single  life.  There  may  be  no 
Smallpox,  but  the  disappearance  of  Smallpox  is  by  no 
means  equivalent  to  a  reduction  of  mortality."  M.P.'s 
were  astonished  and  incredulous ;  but  ignorantly.  The 
fact  is  incontestable ;  and  Dr.  Robert  Watt  of  Glasgow 
had  the  signal  distinction  of  detecting  and  setting  it 
forth  in  the  year  1813.* 

Watt  was  writing  a  treatise  on  Chincough,  otherwise 
Whooping  Cough,  and  in  the  course  of  his  work  made  a 
careful  examination  of  the  registers  of  death  in  Glasgow 
to  ascertain  how  far  it  was  true  "  that  the  disease  was 
more  fatal  some  years  than  others;  that  it  was  more 
dangerous  at  a  particular  age ;  and  that  the  female  sex 
suffered  more  from  it  than  the  male ;"  and,  from  the  out- 
set of  his  investigation,  "  was  struck  with  the  immense 
numbers  carried  off  yearly  by  the  Smallpox."  He  might 
well  be  struck ;  for  Glasgow  was  a  rare  place  for  Small- 

*  An  Inquiry  into  the  Relative  Mortality  of  the  Principal  Diseases  of 
Children,  and  the  numbers  who  have  died  under  Ten  Years  of  Age  in 
Glasgow  during  the  last  Thirty  Years.  By  Robert  Watt,  M.D., 
Lecturer  on  the  Theory  and  on  the  Practice  of  Medicine  in  Glasgow. 
Glasgow,  1813.  Pp.  64. 


440 


VACCINATION. 


pox,  as  appears  from  the  following  statement  compiled 
from  Watt's  Tables— 


DEATHS  IN  GLASGOW  FOR  TEN  YEARS, 

1783-1792. 

Vpar               From     , 

Year<          Smallpox.  * 

[easles 

Whooping 
'    Cough. 

Children 
under 
Two. 

Children 
under 
Ten. 

Total, 
all 

Ages. 

1783  155 

66 

153 

479 

719 

1413 

1784  .... 

.  425 

1 

13 

671 

877 

1623 

1785  .... 

.  218 

— 

34 

576 

744 

1552 

1786  .... 

.  348 

2 

173 

706 

941 

1622 

1787  .... 

.  410 

23 

57 

746 

1016 

1802 

1788  .... 

.  399 

1 

17 

770 

1059 

1982 

1789  .... 

.  366 

23 

45 

794 

1058 

1753 

1790  .... 

.  336 

33 

177 

903 

1236 

1866 

1791  .... 

.  607 

4 

117 

984 

1367 

2146 

1792  202 

58 

68 

664 

902 

1848 

Total,  ...  3466      211 


854 


7293        9919     17,607 


The  succeeding  ten  years,  1793-1802,  repeat  much  the 
same  tale,  with,  however,  a  diminution  of  mortality  in 
an  increasing  population,  and  a  decrease  in  smallpox 
with  an  increase  in  measles  and  whooping-cough  :  thus — 


DEATHS  IN  GLASGOW  FOR  TEN  YEARS,  1793-1802. 

^  ___..__        Children    Children       Total, 

Year. 

rruiu 
Smallpox. 

Measles. 

w  iioopmg 
Cough. 

under 
Two. 

under 
Ten. 

all 

Ages. 

1793 

389 

5 

112 

807 

1126 

2045 

1794 

235 

7 

51             553 

759 

1445 

1795 

402 

46 

180             761 

1048 

1901 

1796 

177 

92 

60 

562 

797 

1369 

1797 

354 

5 

76 

586 

884 

1662 

1798 

309 

3 

98 

642 

864 

1603 

1799 

370 

43 

95 

783 

1105 

1906 

1800 

257 

21 

27 

545 

716 

1550 

1801 

245 

8 

125 

494 

766 

1434 

1802 

156 

168 

90 

544 

985 

1770 

Total 

,  ...  2894 

398 

914 

6277 

9050 

16,685 

Considering  these  figures  said  Watt — 

I  remarked  that  the  deaths  by  Smallpox  were  chiefly  in  infancy ; 
hence  the  deaths  under  two  or  three  years  of  age  bore  a  very  great 
proportion  to  the  whole  deaths  in  the  city.  Taking  an  average  of 
several  years,  I  found  that  more  than  half  the  human  species  died 
before  they  were  ten  years  of  age,  and  that  of  this  half  more  than  a 
third  died  of  the  Smallpox ;  so  that  nearly  a  fifth  part  of  all  that 
were  born  alive  perished  by  this  dreadful  malady. 


SMALLPOX  DISPLACED  AND  REPLACED.  441 

Watt  meant  of  course  the  human  species  as  exhibited 
in  Glasgow,  of  whom  more  than  half  died  before  the  age 
of  ten,  and  a  fifth  of  smallpox.  What  was  true  for  a 
time  of  Glasgow  smallpox  was  not  even  true  of  Edin- 
burgh, much  less  of  the  whole  earth. 

Variolation  was  practised  in  Glasgow,  but  to  what 
extent  appears  to  be  unknown.  Certain,  however,  it  is 
that  smallpox  was  as  little  dreaded  as  are  other  calamities 
accounted  common  and  unavoidable.  Indeed  many  were 
not  unwilling  to  subject  their  offspring  to  the  disease  at 
seasons  supposed  to  be  favourable  on  the  principle  of 
"getting  a  bad  job  over."  Then,  too,  the  mass  of  the 
population  was  disposed  as  if  by  design  for  the  genera- 
tion of  febrile  ailments.  Tall  buildings  forming  narrow 
lanes,  wynds,  or  closes  issued  like  so  many  rents  or 
fissures  from  the  leading  thoroughfares,  These  buildings 
were  divided  into  flats  packed  with  humanity  from 
basement  to  attic.  Air  and  light  were  treated  as  super- 
fluities. Water  there  was  none,  save  what  was  brought 
from  wells ;  and  middens  received  the  slops  and  refuse 
often  shot  from  the  windows.  Life  in  a  Glasgow  wynd 
in  former  days  is  indescribable,  yea  almost  inconceivable; 
yet  in  such  wynds  multitudes  passed  their  existence, 
conscious  of  no  hardship,  recognising  nothing  better,  and 
withal  characterised  by  many  virtues.  Bearing  such 
conditions  in  mind,  the  vital  statistics  of  Glasgow  excite 
no  surprise :  the  wonder  is  that  the  death-rate  did  not 
draw  nearer  to  extermination.  As  for  smallpox,  how 
could  a  family  resident  in  a  flat  in  a  noisome  Glasgow 
close  at  the  end  of  last  century  escape  smallpox,  if  small- 
pox were  prevalent  ?  To  them  smallpox  lay  in  fate,  and 
was  accepted  on  the  same  terms  as  wind  and  weather, 
summer  and  winter. 

Novelties  have  always  had  a  ready  welcome  in  Glasgow, 
and  when  cheap  and  easy  salvation  from  smallpox  was 
proclaimed,  there  was  a  rush  for  it.  Smallpox  abated : 
vaccination  had  the  credit :  and  faith  was  justified.  Con- 
sidering the  devastation  smallpox  had  wrought  among 
the  young,  Watt  says — 


442 


VACCINATION. 


I  began  to  reflect  how  different  the  case  must  be  now ;  and  to 
calculate  the  great  saving  of  human  life  that  must  have  arisen  from 
the  Vaccine  Inoculation.  At  this  time  [1813J  above  15,000  had 
been  inoculated  publicly  at  the  Faculty  Hall,  and  perhaps  twice  or 
thrice  that  number  in  private  practice.  In  eight  years  [1805-12] 
little  more  than  600  had  died  in  Glasgow  of  Smallpox ;  whereas  in 
1784  the  deaths  by  that  disease  alone  amounted  to  425,  and  in  1791 
to  607  ;  which,  on  both  occasions,  exceeded  the  fourth  of  the  whole 
deaths  in  the  city  for  the  year. 

It  seemed  reasonable  to  infer  that  since  the  mortality 
from  smallpox  had  so  largely  declined,  fewer  children 
must  have  died ;  but  to  Watt's  astonishment  the  facts 
did  not  answer  to  the  logic.  He  writes — • 

To  ascertain  the  real  amount  of  this  saving  of  infantile  life,  I 
turned  up  one  of  the  later  years,  and  by  accident  that  of  1808,  when 
to  my  utter  astonishment,  I  found  that  still  a  half,  or  more  than  a 
half,  perished  before  the  tenth  year  of  their  age !  I  could  hardly 
believe  the  testimony  of  my  senses,  and  therefore  began  to  turn 
up  other  years,  when  I  found  that  in  all  of  them  the  proportion 
was  less  than  in  1808 ;  but  still  on  taking  an  average  of  several 
years,  it  amounted  to  nearly  the  same  thing  as  at  any  former 
period  during  the  last  thirty  years.  This  was  a  discovery  I  by  no 
means  expected,  and  how  it  could  have  come  to  pass  appeared  to 
me  inexplicable. 

We  shall  better  understand  Watt's  perplexity  over 
smallpox  reduced  and  death  unaffected,  if  we  set  before 
us  the  table  of  mortality  for  the  decade  during  which 
vaccination  was  brought  into  practice  in  Glasgow. 


DEATHS  IN  GLASGOW  FOR  TEN  YEARS,  1803-1812. 

Children    Children 

Total, 

Year. 

From 
Smallpox. 

Measles. 

WCo°ugnng 

under 
Two. 

under 
Ten. 

all 

Ages. 

1803 

194 

45 

60 

610 

940 

1860 

1804 

213 

27 

52 

583 

863 

1670 

1805 

56 

90 

129 

616 

884 

1671 

1806 

28 

56 

162 

517 

786 

1620 

1807 

97 

16 

85 

595 

899 

1806 

1808 

51 

787 

92 

1079 

1775 

2623 

1809 

159 

44 

259 

782 

1187 

2124 

1810 

28 

19 

147 

765 

1027 

2111 

1811 

109 

267 

62 

769 

1274 

2342 

1812 

78 

304 

103 

804 

1278 

2348 

Total 

,  ...  1013 

1655 

1151 

7120 

10,913 

20,175 

SMALLPOX  DISPLACED  AND  REPLACED. 


443 


To  make  the  facts  clear  let  us  bring  the  results  of  the 
three  decades  together — 


Decade. 

1783-1792  .., 
1793-1802  ... 
1803-1812  .. 


From      M-QQloa  Whooping 
Smallpox. Measles-     Cough 

.  3466  211  854 
.  2894  398  914 
.  1013  1655  1151 


Children 
under 
Two. 

Children 
under 
Ten. 

7293 
6277 
7120 

9,919 

9,050 
10,913 

Total 
Deaths, 

All  Ages. 

17,607 
16,685 
20,175 


Before  making  any  commentary  on  these  remarkable 
figures,  it  may  be  well  to  attend  to  what  Watt  had  to 
say  concerning  them.  He  was  satisfied  that  vaccination 
arrested  smallpox,  but  it  was  plain  that  it  did  not  arrest 
death,  and  he  felt  bound  to  find  some  explanation — 

From  every  circumstance  that  has  come  under  my  observation, 
the  efficacy  of  Vaccine  Inoculation  appeared  certain.  The  experi- 
ence of  pretty  extensive  practice  had  confirmed  me  fully  in  this 
opinion.  But  still  the  question  recurred,  how  are  we  to  account 
for  the  same,  or  nearly  the  same,  number  of  deaths  under  ten 
years  of  age  ?  As  no  new  disease  has  appeared,  the  deficiency 
occasioned  by  the  want  of  Smallpox  must  have  been  made  up  by 
a  greater  mortality  among  the  other  diseases  of  children.  Has  it 
been  equally  divided  among  them,  or  has  a  greater  share  fallen  to 
some  than  to  others  ?  To  solve  this  question  is  the  chief  object  of 
my  inquiry. 

To  ascertain  the  fact,  he  divided  the  thirty  years, 
1783-1812,  into  five  periods  of  six  years  each,  and  thus 
set  forth  the  average  proportionate  mortalities — 


Years. 

From 
Smallpox. 

Measles 

Whooping 
Cough. 

Children 
under 
Two. 

Children 
under 
Ten. 

Total 
Deaths, 
All  Ages. 

1783-1788 

19-55 

•93 

4-51 

39-40 

53-48 

9,994 

1789-1794 

18-22 

1-17 

5-13 

42-38 

58-07 

n,ioa 

1795-1800 

18-70 

2-10 

5-36 

38-82 

54-48 

9,991 

1801-1806 

8-90 

3-92 

6-12 

33-50 

52-03 

10,034 

1807-1812 

3-90 

10-76 

5-57 

35-89 

55-69 

13,354 

The  first  three  of  these  periods,  1783-1800,  had  passed  before 
the  Vaccine  Inoculation  could  have  had  any  influence  [observes 
Watt] ;  in  the  fourth,  1801-1806,  it  had  nearly  reached  its  maximum; 
and  in  the  last,  1807-1812,  it  may  be  said  to  have  been  pretty  fully 
established,  perhaps  as  much  so  as  in  any  other  city  in  the  empire. 

Vaccination  having  been  introduced  to  Glasgow  to 
save  life,  Where  was  the  salvation  ?  Smallpox  had  fallen 


VACCINATION. 


off,  but  if  its  victims  were  merely  assigned  to  other  modes 
of. death,  where  was  the  advantage?     Watt  continues — 

The  first  thing  which  strikes  the  mind  on  surveying  the  preced- 
ing Table,  is  the  vast  diminution  in  the  proportion  of  deaths  by  the 
Smallpox — a  reduction  from  19*55  to  3*90  per  cent.;  but  the  increase 
in  the  Measles  column  is  still  more  remarkable — an  increase  from 
•93  to  10'76  per  cent.  In  Smallpox  we  have  the  deaths  reduced  to 
nearly  a  fifth  of  what  they  were  twenty-five  years  ago,  whilst  in 
the  same  period,  the  deaths  by  Measles  have  increased  more  than 
eleven  times.  This  is  a  fact  so  striking,  that  I  am  astonished  it 
has  not  attracted  the  notice  of  older  practitioners. 

The  greatest  number  of  deaths  from  Smallpox  in  any  one  month 
during  the  last  thirty  years  was  114  in  October,  1791.  In  the 
following  December  they  were  113.  These  are  the  only  two 
instances  in  thirty  years  when  the  deaths  by  Smallpox  amounted 
to  100  in  a  month.  But  these  were  slight  visitations  when  com- 
pared with  the  ravages  which  have  been  committed  in  an  equally 
short  time  by  Measles.  In  May,  1803,  the  deaths  by  Measles 
alone  amounted  to  259,  in  June  to  260,  and  in  July  to  118.  In 
December,  1811,  they  amounted  to  161,  and  in  the  January  follow- 
ing to  130.  What  an  amazing  difference  when  we  compare  these 
numbers  with  433,  the  sum  of  all  the  deaths  by  Measles  in  eighteen 
years  preceding  1801!  In  the  last  five  years  1430  have  died  of 
Measles  in  Glasgow. 

This  prodigious  increase  in  the  mortality  from  Measles 
was  naturally  referred  by  some  observers  to  the  practice 
of  Vaccination,  and  Watt  held  there  was  ground  for  the 
assumption  inasmuch  as  when  Smallpox  preceded  Measles 
it  made  Measles  milder — 

When  Measles  was  so  prevalent  and  fatal  in  1808,  I  was  often 
told  that  it  was  owing  to  the  Vaccine  Inoculation ;  but  this  I 
considered  an  idle  tale,  the  invention  of  those  who  were  hostile  to 
Oowpox.  I  could  readily  admit  that  more  must  die  of  Measles 
than  formerly ;  for  some  of  the  weak  and  unhealthy,  who  would 
have  died  of  Smallpox  (saved  from  Smallpox)  would  fall  a  sacrifice 
to  Measles ;  but  I  could  not  then  go  farther. 

But  however  novel  and  strange  the  opinion  may  appear,  it  must 
be  admitted  that  while  Smallpox  was  in  full  force,  it  had  the  power 
of  modifying  and  rendering  Measles  mild ;  and  now  that  Smallpox 
is  in  great  measure  expelled,  Measles  is  gradually  coming  to  occupy 
the  same  ground.  I  am  sorry  to  make  this  statement,  but  the 
facts,  at  least  with  regard  to  Glasgow,  are  too  strong  to  admit  of 
doubt.  .  .  . 

That  Measles  should  have  been  modified  by  Smallpox  is  rendered 


SMALLPOX  DISPLACED  AND  REPLACED.  445 

highly  probable  by  the  manner  in  which  the  Vaccine  Disease  pre- 
vents Smallpox  or  renders  it  so  mild  as  to  be  without  the  smallest 
danger.  May  not  Smallpox  have  a  similar  effect  in  relation  to 
Measles? 

When  Smallpox  was  in  full  force,  few  children  escaped,  and 
most  of  those  who  had  Smallpox  and  Measles  had  Smallpox  first. 
This,  I  believe,  will  have  been  the  case  with  more  than  nine-tenths 
of  the  community.  Still,  however,  as  Measles  came  round,  it 
occasionally  had  precedence  of  Smallpox,  and  it  was  perhaps 
chiefly  among  such  patients  that  it  proved  fatal.  In  looking  over 
the  registers  of  former  years,  I  find  the  deaths  by  Measles  were 
generally  among  very  young  children. 

He  was  even  disposed  to  believe  that  Smallpox,  on  the 
whole,  exercised  a  beneficial  influence  in  the  eradication 
of  latent  disease — 

An  opinion  has  prevailed  with  some,  that  Vaccination  does 
positive  harm  by  infusing  peccant  or  vicious  humour  into  the 
constitution.  I  do  not  see  the  smallest  ground  for  this  hypothesis ; 
but  that  Smallpox  does  good  to  those  who  survive  the  disease  by 
rendering  the  system  insusceptible  of  other  infections,  or  by  ren- 
dering them  milder  when  incurred,  must,  I  think,  be  admitted. 
.  .  .  I  do  not  presume  that  the  constitution  is  improved  by 
Smallpox,  but  perhaps  by  eradicating  certain  unobserved  deviations 
from  health,  which,  if  not  early  removed  by  the  accession  of  some 
acute  disease,  would  have  proved  the  seeds  of  early  mortality  by 
gaining  a  deeper  hold  of  the  constitution  before  Measles  and  other 
epidemics  of  later  appearance  came  round. 

In  this  point  of  view,  we  are  not  to  consider  Smallpox  as 
peculiarly  fatal,  but  fatal  merely  as  having  the  start  of  some  other 
diseases.  Measles,  Chincough,  Croup,  and  Scarlet  Fever  would 
have  proved  equally  fatal  had  any  of  them  occurred  first.  .  .  . 
It  is  only  on  this  principle  that  we  can  explain  how  it  happened 
that  thirty  years  ago  not  one  in  a  hundred  died  of  Measles, 
whereas  now  one  in  ten  dies.  Thirty  years  ago  as  few  escaped 
Measles  as  now,  but  before  they  were  affected  they  had  general!}7" 
passed  through  Smallpox,  by  which  the  secondary  disease  was  so 
modified  as  to  be  almost  completely  divested  of  danger. 

Watt,  it  will  be  observed,  treats  smallpox  throughout 
as  a  malady  of  childhood ;  thus  confirming  Monro's 
observation  in  1765,  that  "  the  inhabitants  of  Scotland 
generally  have  smallpox  in  their  infancy  or  childhood, 
very  few  adults  being  seen  in  the  disease." 

From  the  preceding  excerpts,  it  is  not  difficult  to  com- 
prehend Watt's  position.  He  was  persuaded  of  the 


446  VACCINATION. 


prophylaxy  of  vaccination ;  he  was  satisfied  that  it  had 
reduced  smallpox  in  Glasgow ;  but,  to  his  astonishment, 
he  discovered  that  it  had  not  reduced  the  general  death- 
rate  ;  and  that  in  so  far  as  smallpox  had  been  displaced, 
•other  ailments,  and  specially  measles,  had  maintained  the 
tale  of  fatality. 

The  discovery  that  the  fall  in  smallpox  was  compen- 
sated for  by  a  rise  in  deaths  from  other  diseases  was 
a  remarkable  discovery,  the  importance  of  which  is  as 
yet  far  from  appreciated.  Watt  was  however  at  fault  in 
attributing  the  decline  of  smallpox  in  Glasgow  to  vaccin- 
ation; and  in  failing  to  inquire  whether  the  phenomenon 
had  any  relation  to  vaccination  whatever.  He  is  the 
best  scientific  demonstrater  who  most  completely  exhausts 
the  possibilities  to  the  contrary  of  what  he  seeks  to 
establish.  Supposing  vaccination  to  be  as  powerful 
against  smallpox  as  its  promoters  averred,  the  causes  in 
Glasgow  was  not  commensurate  with  the  effect.  Nowhere 
was  vaccination  more  practised.  15,000  were  vaccinated 
at  the  Faculty  Hall,  says  Watt,  "  and  perhaps  twice  or 
thrice  that  number  in  private  practice" — a  loose  and 
questionable  statement.  The  15,000  operated  on  at  the 
Faculty  Hall  in  the  course  of  ten  years  were  the  poor, 
the  vast  majority  in  Glasgow  and  elsewhere,  and  the 
chief  sufferers  from  smallpox.  The  assumed  "  twice  or 
thrice  that  number  "  were  those  who  employed  their  own 
medical  men  —  a  luxury  less  common  then  than  now. 
The  population  of  Glasgow  approached  100,000,  and  it  is 
obvious  that  the  larger  part  must  have  lived  outside  the 
fortification  of  the  Jennerian  rite. 

But  admitting  that  all,  or  nearly  all,  in  Glasgow  were 
vaccinated  who  had  not  had  smallpox,  still  that  would 
afford  no  proof  for  what  was  claimed.  Watt  was 
cautious,  and  held  closely  by  his  Glasgow  evidence, 
content  to  have  it  taken  for  what  it  was  worth ;  but  had 
he  ranged  wider,  he  would  have  discovered  that  the  fall 
in  smallpox  extended  over  Europe,  and  was  as  well 
marked  in  Vienna  as  in  Glasgow,  in  Stockholm  as  in 
London,  in  Italy  as  in  Denmark.  As  in  Glasgow  the 


SMALLPOX  DISPLACED  AND  REPLACED.  447 

credit  for  the  fall  was  claimed  for  vaccination,  but  the 
fall  had  set  in  before  vaccination  was  heard  of,  and 
extended  over  populations  to  which  vaccination  had  no 
application.  Indeed  Watt  allows  that  the  fatality  of 
smallpox  had  begun  to  decline  and  that  of  measles  to 
increase  prior  to  the  conveyance  of  the  Jennerian  salva- 
tion to  Glasgow ;  but  he  failed  to  discern  the  significance 
of  the  fact.  So  too  in  other  cities  where  smallpox  fell 
off:  the  death-rate  did  not  fall  off;  but,  as  in  Glasgow, 
was  kept  up  by  cognate  varieties  of  fever. 

As  concerns  Watt,  we  have  the  advantage  of  some 
notes  upon  his  "remarkable  treatise"  by  Dr.  William 
Farr  in  the  Thirtieth  Annual  Report  of  the  Registrar- 
General,  1869.  Having  given  an  abstract  of  Watt's 
results,  Dr.  Farr  observes  of  his  discovery  of  displaced 
and  replaced  mortality — 

This  is  an  important  point  in  pathology ;  and  it  must  be  admitted 
that  although  there  were  defects  in  his  data,  Dr.  Watt  succeeds  in 
showing  (1)  that  Smallpox  was  one  of  the  greatest  causes  of  death 
in  Glasgow  down  to  the  year  1800,  (2)  that  the  deaths  by  Smallpox 
were  reduced  to  a  fifth  of  their  original  number  by  Vaccination,* 
and  (3)  that  the  children  died  in  nearly  the  same  numbers  as 
before,  but  of  other  forms  of  disease. 

Glasgow  has  always  been  famous  for  statistics,  and  these  unfor- 
tunately show  an  increase  of  the  mortality  of  children.  Thus  in 
the  five  years  1821-25  the  mortality  of  boys  under  five  years  of  age 
was  8-08 ;  in  1831-35  it  was  9'78.  In  the  year  1865  the  mortality 
of  boys  in  Glasgow  was  11-48,  of  girls,  10'36.  These  recent  returns 
confirm  the  principle.  Smallpox  is  no  longer  so  fatal  as  it  was 
before  Vaccination  was  introduced ;  in  Glasgow  it  caused  in  the 
year  1864  no  longer  20  but  2  in  100  deaths  —  only  180  in  6054 
deaths,  that  is  3  per  cent,  of  the  deaths  under  five  years  of  age ; 
yet  the  mortality  of  children  is  certainly  as  high,  probably  higher, 
than  it  was  in  the  last  10  years  of  the  last  century. 

Compulsory  Vaccination  in  England  has  reduced  further  the 
fatality  of  Smallpox,  but  since  1853  other  diseases  have  so  pre- 
vailed as  to  counter-balance  the  gain  under  this  head.  The  mor- 
tality of  children  has  not  declined  in  a  corresponding  degree. 

With  confirmation  under  such  authority,  it  is  needless 
to  enforce  the  validity  and  importance  of  Watt's  dis- 
covery. Dr.  Farr  is  pleased  to  ascribe  the  subsidence  of 

*  An  inference  disputed  for  reasons  given. 


448  VACCINATION. 


smallpox  alike  in  England  and  Glasgow  to  vaccination, 
but  he  makes  no  effort  to  prove  his  case :  indeed  the 
effort  might  have  led  him  to  recognise  his  mistake. 
Referring  to  scarlet-fever,  he  shows  how  from  a  mild  it 
has  become  a  severe  affliction — 

Sydenham  (d.  1689)  describes  simple  Scarlatina  distinctly :  he 
does  not  refer  to  the  throat  affections,  and  says  the  patient  can 
only  die  by  the  doctor's  default.  Joseph  Frank  describes  the 
disease  as  now  the  most  dreadful  scourge  in  Europe. 

If  then  scarlet  fever  has  of  itself  acquired  this  terrible 
intensity  and  predominance,  why  should  it  be  thought 
incredible  that  smallpox  of  itself  should  undergo  corres- 
pondent mitigation  and  diminution  ?  Or,  is  it  to  be 
argued  that  vaccination  has  extinguished  smallpox  to 
revive  as  scarlet  fever  ? 

Dr.  Farr  proceeds  to  observe — 

It  is  singular  that  Dr.  Watt,  evidently  a  practitioner  of  great 
sagacity,  does  not  at  all  advert  to  the  wretched  sanitary  condition 
in  which  the  increasing  population  of  Glasgow  lived  at  the  time  he 
was  writing. 

It  is  the  observation  of  Dr.  Farr  that  is  singular.  At 
the  time  when  Watt  wrote  there  was  no  clear  conception 
of  the  relation  of  condition  to  disease.  Jenner  was 
always  writing  about  smallpox,  yet  there  is  not  a  hint 
in  any  of  his  papers  as  to  its  development  in  filth  and 
stench.  His  own  residence  was  a  pesthouse,  but  it  never 
entered  into  his  head  to  ask,  Why  ?  Let  us  avoid 
anachronism.  Those  whose  memory  or  reading  extends 
to  the  cholera  epidemic  of  1831-32  will  know,  that  it 
was  regarded  as  an  inscrutable  visitation  toward  which 
humble  submission  was  the  proper  attitude.  A  letter  of 
Collins,  the  artist,  to  the  Rev.  R.  A.  Thorpe,  26th 
November,  1831,  correctly  expresses  the  common  feeling. 
Referring  to  the  Cholera  and  the  Reform  Bill,  he  says — 

Of  the  two  scourges  now  afflicting  us,  I  know  not  which  is  the 
worse,  but  I  do  know  that  we  have  fallen  into  the  hands  of  God  in 
both  cases,  and  not  before  we  deserved  it.* 

*  Memoirs  of  William  Collins,  R.A.     By  his  Son.     Vol.  ii.  p.  3. 


SMALLPOX  DISPLACED  AND  REPLACED.  449 

I  myself  recollect  the  dismay  the  Combes  excited  in 
Scotland  when  they  began  to  teach  that  we  were  largely 
responsible  for  our  ailments,  and  that  sickness  and 
sanctity  were  an  unwholesome  alliance ;  and  how  a  pious 
physician  remarked,  when  the  prevalence  of  typhus  in 
Glasgow  had  been  denounced  as  disgraceful  to  the 
authorities,  "We  have  learnt  the  truth  in  another  school, 
and  would  shudder  to  impeach  the  Divine  prerogative  in 
life  or  in  death."  What  Watt  really  thought  of  smallpox 
is  to  be  found  in  a  passage  of  his  treatise  which  Dr.  Farr 
must  have  overlooked.  He  says — 

We  may  it  seems,  by  the  permission  of  Divine  Providence, 
deprive  death  of  some  of  its  apparently  most  efficient  means,  but 
deprived  of  these,  new  means  are  discovered,  or  the  old  improved. 

I  cannot  help  quoting  the  following  passage  from  Dr.  Woolcombe 
as  somewhat  prophetic  of  this  general  result.  Says  he — 

"  May  not  the  discovery  of  the  Cowpox,  if  it  should  ultimately 
effect  the  extermination  of  the  Smallpox,  which  it  may  do  when 
the  prejudices  of  mankind  shall  permit,  be  welcomed  rather  on 
account  of  its  influence  in  diminishing  human  suffering,  than  on 
account  of  its  effect  in  diminishing  human  mortality?  Since 
disease  is  one  of  the  appointed  checks  to  excessive  population,  and 
the  plan  of  Providence  in  the  creation  of  human  life  requires  the 
termination  of  the  existence  of  one-third  of  its  creatures  before 
they  have  attained  the  age  of  two  years,  it  may  be  doubted  whether 
the  annihilation  of  so  efficient  an  instrument  as  Smallpox  can  be 
admitted  without  the  substitution  of  some  other  equally  destructive 
malady.  The  substituted  malady  may  indeed  be  productive  of  less 
collateral  affliction  than  the  loathsome  distemper  whose  place  it 
supplies.  But  granting  that  no  direct  substitute  should  arise,  it 
will  not  follow  that  disease  in  general  will  be  deprived  of  its  accus- 
tomed share  in  checking  population ;  and  if  it  be  not,  the  only 
difference  will  be  in  the  proportion  of  victims  submitted  to  other 
disorders.  The  infant  rescued  from  Smallpox,  may  be  rescued 
only  to  perish  in  childhood  by  Measles  or  Scarlatina,  or  be  pre- 
served to  swell  the  list  of  youthful  victims  to  the  insatiate  maw  of 
Consumption."  -; 

Such  was  the  manner  in  which  Watt  dealt  with  the 
problem  of  mortality.  Sanitation  had  no  place  in  his 
consideration.  It  was,  he  thought,  the  design  of  Provi- 
dence to  limit  population,  and  if  children  were  saved 
from  smallpox,  they  would  be  cut  off  otherwise ;  and  the 

*  Remarks  on  the  Frequency  and  Fatality  of  Different  Diseases.     1808. 
29 


450  VACCINATION. 


statistics  of  Glasgow  confirmed  the  opinion.  Smallpox 
had  abated,  but  funerals  were  numerous  as  ever.  The 
uniformity  of  the  mortality  we  admit,  but  no  longer 
ascribe  it  to  Providence  intent  on  the  limitation  of  popu- 
lation. If  children  die,  it  is  not  of  fate,  but  from  the 
ignorance,  or  indifference,  or  wickedness  of  those  who  are 
responsible  for  them. 

Still  some  may  object,  "  If  by  vaccination  or  any  other 
means  smallpox  is  got  rid  of,  Should  we  not  to  that 
extent  save  life  ? "  The  answer  is,  No.  Life  is  only 
extensible  in  so  far  as  improvement  is  effected  in  the 
conditions  of  life.  Forms  of  disease  are  subject  to  modi- 
fication ;  they  are  probably  convertible  and  interchange- 
able ;  one  form  comes  as  another  goes ;  but  conditions 
remaining  the  same,  the  crop  of  death  is  equal.  Hence 
Mr.  Edwin  Chadwick's  advice — 

Keep  your  eye  on  the  death-rate.  Let  nothing  short  of  its 
reduction  satisfy  you.  There  may  be  no  startling  outbreak  of  this 
fever  or  of  that  fever ;  but  if  the  death-rate  is  unabated,  there  can 
be  no  improvement  that  ought  to  satisfy  you.  The  death-rate  is 
the  test  of  sanitary  progress.  Keep  therefore  your  eye  on  the 
death-rate. 

Thus  it  was  that  though  smallpox  subsided  in  Glasgow 
no  lives  were  saved  ;  for  no  change  for  the  better  having 
taken  place  in  the  condition  of  the  inhabitants,  the  means 
of  death  were  merely  transferred  to  other  agencies.  As 
Dr.  Farr  observes — 

The  Glasgow  victims  were  gathered  together  from  all  quarters, 
from  the  Highlands,  from  Ireland,  and  from  elsewhere  ;  they  were 
lodged  in  conditions  unsuitable  to  human  life.  ...  To  render  them 
unassailable  by  the  matter  of  Smallpox  was  not  enough,  for  it  left 
them  exposed  to  the  other  forms  of  disease.  Thus  in  a  garden 
where  the  flowers  are  neglected,  to  keep  off  thistle-down  merely 
leaves  the  ground  open  to  the  world  of  surrounding  weeds. 

To  operate  on  mortality,  protection  against  every  one  of  the  fatal 
zymotic  diseases  is  required;  otherwise  the  suppression  of  one 
disease-element  opens  the  way  to  another. 

Dr.  Farr  thus  exactly  expresses  what  I  wish  to  enforce. 
Whether  smallpox  prevail  or  disappear  is  of  little  import- 
ance. What  is  of  importance  is  the  prevalence  of  disease 
and  death,  and  not  the  presence  or  absence  of  any  of 


SMALLPOX  DISPLACED  AND  REPLACED.  451 

their  special  factors  when  the  total  result  is  constant 
and  the  measure  of  violated  physiological  laws.  It  is 
true  that  Dr.  Farr  recognises  a  virtue  in  vaccination,  but 
on  much  the  same  terms  that  obeisance  is  rendered  to  a 
fetish.  Vaccination  might  be  struck  out  of  his  arguments 
without  affecting  his  conclusions.  How,  for  example, 
could  the  facts  with  their  rationale  be  better  stated  than 
in  these  his  words  ? — 

Out  of  1000  born  in  Liverpool,  518  children  were  destroyed  in 
the  first  ten  years  of  their  life  ;  some  by  Smallpox,  many  by 
Measles,  Scarlatina,  Whooping  Cough,  many  by  Typhus  and 
Enteric  Fever ;  one  disease  prevailing  in  one  year,  another  disease 
prevailing  in  another ;  but  still  yielding  the  like  fatal  results. 
This  represents  what  Dr.  Watt  found  in  Glasgow  long  ago.  Out 
of  1000  children  born  in  London,  351  died  under  ten  years  of  age 
by  zymotic  diseases  and  other  causes ;  the  deaths  are  less  by  167 
than  the  deaths  in  Liverpool.  How  much  less  is  the  loss  of  life 
by  these  diseases  in  the  healthy  districts  of  England !  There,  out 
of  1000,  only  205  children  die  in  the  first  ten  years  of  life.  The 
enormous  difference  cannot  be  ascribed  to  Vaccination,  as  common 
in  town  as  in  country;  the  protection  of  life  against  Smallpox 
alone  leaves  it  still  at  the  mercy  of  the  dangerous  diseases  of  the 
insalubrious  city. 

Death  from  disease  in  insalubrious  circumstances  is 
but  part  of  the  mischief.  Those  who  survive  find  their 
energies  enfeebled  and  depressed  in  the  struggle  for 
survival.  The  time  must  surely  come  wnen  smallpox 
and  all  allied  forms  of  disease  will  be  accounted  discredi- 
table and  intolerable,  and  when  their  occurrence  will  be 
taken  for  notes  of  warning  and  command  to  search  for 
and  root  out  their  causes.  Then,  too,  magical  preventives 
and  palliatives  and  medical  cures  will  have  a  very 
different  place  in  the  popular  imagination. 

Jenner  read  Watt's  pamphlet,  and,  more  suo,  the 
wretched  creature  failed  to  discern  its  scope  and  signifi- 
cance, seeing  in  it  a  malevolent  aggression  upon  his 
interest  in  vaccination.  He  wrote  to  Moore  from 
Cheltenham,  6th  December,  1813— 

You  probably  may  not  have  seen  a  pamphlet  lately  published 
by  Dr.  Watt,  as  there  is  nothing  in  its  title  that  develops  its  pur- 


452  VACCINATION. 


port  or  evil  tendency.  Measles,  it  seems,  has  been  extremely  fatal 
in  Glasgow  for  the  last  four  or  five  years  among  children,  and 
during  this  period  Vaccination  has  been  practised  almost  univer- 
sally. Previously  to  this,  Measles  was  considered  a  mild  disease. 
Hence  Dr.  Watt  infers  that  Smallpox  is  a  kind  of  preparative  for 
Measles,  rendering  the  disease  more  mild.  In  short,  he  says,  or 
seems  to  say,  that  we  have  gained  nothing  by  the  introduction  of 
Cowpox ;  for  that  Measles  and  Smallpox  have  now  changed  places 
with  regard  to  their  fatal  tendency.  Is  not  this  very  shocking  ? 
Here  is  a  new  and  unexpected  twig  shot  forth  for  the  sinking 
Anti-Vaccinist  to  cling  to.* 

Observe,  the  truth  of  Dr.  Watt's  evidence  was  passed 
over !  Inasmuch  as  it  did  not  tend  to  the  glory  of  vac- 
cination, it  was  "evil,"  and  it  was  "shocking."  At  a 
later  date  Baron  assumed  the  same  line,  saying — 

Notwithstanding  the  proofs  of  the  power  of  Vaccination  in  dimi- 
nishing the  mortality  from  Smallpox,  it  has  been  a  question 
whether  infantile  mortality  has  been  diminished ;  it  having  been 
supposed  that  the  beneficial  effects  of  Vaccination  were  counter- 
vailed by  a  greater  mortality  in  the  other  diseases  of  children. 
This  very  discouraging  statement  was  published  by  Dr.  Watt,  of 
Glasgow ;  and  the  opinion,  which  was  hastily  adopted  and  unwisely 
promulgated,  has  unquestionably  had  a  great  effect  in  retarding 
the  progress  of  Vaccination.  It,  unfortunately,  gave  countenance 
to  some  of  the  worst  prejudices  of  those  who  were  opposed  to  the 
practice,  f 

Here  again  we  see  no  attempt  made  to  disprove  Watt's 
statement,  whilst  its  mischievousness  was  assumed  be- 
cause it  was  "  discouraging,"  and  lent  "  countenance  to 
some  of  the  worst  prejudices  of  those  who  were  opposed 
to  vaccination ! "  Truth  is  the  best  of  all  things— 
except  when  it  spoils  business.  Then  it  becomes  "  evil," 
and  "shocking,"  and  "gives  countenance  to  the  worst 
prejudices." 

*  Baron's  Life  ofJenner,  vol.  ii.  p.  392. 
t  Ibid.,  vol.  ii.  p.  248. 


THE  NATIONAL  VACCINE  ESTABLISHMENT.         453 


CHAPTER    XXXV. 

THE   NATIONAL   VACCINE   ESTABLISHMENT — 1808-40. 

WE  shall  now  return  to  the  current  of  our  Story,  nor 
turn  aside  until  it  is  brought  to  a  conclusion  in  the  en- 
actment of  Compulsory  Vaccination. 

With  £3000  a-year  the  National  Vaccine  Establish- 
ment was  constituted  by  the  House  of  Commons,  on  9th 
June,  1808;  sixty  members  voting  for  the  project,  and 
five  against. 

The  reasons  for  the  institution  were  somewhat  compli- 
cated. The  Royal  Jennerian  Society  had  been  wrecked 
by  Jenner's  jealousy  and  intrigue.  The  working  and 
subscribing  members  seceded  with  Dr.  Walker,  and  set 
up  the  London  Vaccine  Institution ;  and  a  variety  of 
ornamental  and  influential  folk,  who  paid  little  and  did 
less,  found  themselves  with  Jenner  on  their  hands,  exi- 
gent, impecunious,  and  helpless,  and  they  publicly  com- 
mitted to  the  patronage  and  diffusion  of  vaccination. 

It  was  an  awkward  situation,  and  two  operations 
for  relief  became  necessary:  first,  to.  dispose  of  Jenner; 
and  second,  to  escape  from  the  maintenance  of  vaccina- 
tion. 

The  first  was  effected  by  inducing  the  House  of  Com- 
mons to  vote  Jenner  £20,000,  and  the  second  by  the 
institution  of  the  National  Vaccine  Establishment.  Thus 
dexterously,  fashionable  and  medical  London  contrived 
to  get  rid  of  Jenner  and  vaccination  on  terms  satisfactory 
to  all  concerned. 

The  early  furore  for  vaccination  had  spent  itself. 
Scepticism  had  thriven  by  experience.  Many  of  the 
vaccinated  had  taken  smallpox,  and  explanations  and  ex- 
cuses were  becoming  exhausted.  It  was  easy  to  claim 
the  benefit  of  mistakes  when  the  operators  were 
amateurs;  but  when  the  failures  were  the  work  of 
Jenner  and  his  certified  associates,  it  was  hard  for  faith 


454  VACCINATION. 

to  hold  out.  Spurious  cowpox  served  to  account  for 
many  disasters;  but  when  Jenner,  pressed  to  define  spuri- 
ous cowpox,  was  driven  to  confess  its  non-existence,  and 
that,  when  he  had  spoken  of  it,  he  had  only  meant  any 
irregular  action  of  cowpox  on  the  persons  of  the  vac- 
cinated, it  is  easy  to  imagine  how  people  who  had  respect 
for  themselves  were  pleased  to  drop  out  of  the  connection. 
They  might  not  care  to  express  all  they  suspected,  nor  to 
proclaim  their  credulity,  but  it  was  a  welcome  deliver- 
ance to  be  no  longer  responsible  for  a  practice  and  a 
character  grown  so  questionable.  On  John  Bull's  broad 
back  was  laid  the  burden. 

In  the  project  of  the  National  Vaccine  Establishment 
there  was  an  explicit  concession  to  the  scepticism  of  the 
time.  One  of  its  purposes  was  alleged  to  be  Investiga- 
tion. Lord  Henry  Petty,  in  recommending  the  measure 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  observed — "  The  evidence  as 
to  the  infallible  efficacy  of  vaccination  is  confessedly  in- 
complete ;  and  it  is  highly  desirable  that  the  truth  should 
be  ascertained  by  public  inquiry,  rather  than  by  societies 
whose  conductors  are  liable  to  the  imputation  of  mer- 
cenary motives."  Jenner  bitterly  resented  the  indignity 
implied  in  placing  vaccination  under  investigation.  He 
held,  and  in  a  sense,  justly,  that  it  was  too  late  to  speak 
of  investigation  when  the  reality  of  his  discovery  had 
been  attested  in  the  public  honours  and  rewards  con- 
ferred upon  him.  "Alas! "  he  exclaimed,  " poor  Vaccinia, 
how  art  thou  degraded  ! "  He  was  still  further  outraged 
by  his  exclusion  from  the  Board  of  the  Establishment,  on 
the  ground  that  the  public  might  have  assurance  of  im- 
partiality. How  much  sincerity  there  was  in  the  profes- 
sion, I  do  not  pretend  to  divine ;  it  is  sufficient  to  point 
out  that  matters  had  come  to  such  a  pass  with  vaccina- 
tion that  it  was  considered  expedient  to  conciliate  the 
taxpayers  with  the  promise  of  inquiry  for  their  money, 
Plainly  the  enthusiastic  certainty  of  1802  had  given 
place  to  a  widely  different  sentiment  in  1808. 

There  were,  however,  wheels  within  wheels.  "You  may 
take  it  for  granted,"  said  a  Radical  of  those  days,  {i  that 


THE  NATIONAL  VACCINE  ESTABLISHMENT.         455 

every  vote  of  public  money  has  an  object  in  excess  of  the 
ostensible  one,  and  covers  jobs  big  or  jobs  little."  And 
so  it  was  in  the  case  before  us.  The  discomfited  residue 
of  the  Koyal  Jennerian  Society  had  influence  with  the 
Government  to  take  over  their  smashed-up  enterprise; 
but  their  solicitation  might  have  been  ineffectual,  had 
not  the  Government  seen  a  way  of  providing  for  a  certain 
claimant  in  the  course  of  the  operation.  Sir  John  Moore 
was  serving  his  country  in  the  Peninsula ;  he  had  friends 
at  the  sources  of  power ;  and  he  had  a  brother  named 
James,  surgeon  to  the  Life  Guards,  for  whom  a  comfort- 
able berth  was  wanted.  Let  us  make  Moore,  they  said, 
Director  of  this  new  Establishment,  with  a  salary  of 
£200  a-year;  and  the  thing  was  done.  Investigation 
was  promised,  Cowpox  was  endowed,  and  Moore  was 
provided  for. 

Jenner  had  actively  promoted  the  formation  of  the 
Establishment,  under  the  conviction  that  he  should  be  its 
governor ;  but  when  the  organisation  was  revealed,  he 
was  profoundly  disgusted.  The  management  was  as- 
signed to  a  Board  of  eight  members,  consisting  of  the 
president  and  four  censors  of  the  College  of  Physicians, 
and  the  master  and  two  governors  of  the  College  of  Sur- 
geons, with  salaries  of  £100  a-year  apiece.  From  this 
Board,  as  stated,  Jenner  was  deliberately  excluded,  "  so 
as  to  ensure  impartial  investigation."  It  was  at  first 
proposed  to  hold  Jenner  subordinate  to  the  Board,  giving 
him  the  title  of  Director,  with  Moore  as  his  working 
deputy ;  for  it  was  clearly  recognised  by  those  who  had 
had  experience  of  him  during  his  London  career,  that  for 
regular  duty  he  was  good  for  nothing ;  and  that  with  his 
sickly  family  resident  in  Gloucestershire,  he  was  never  to 
be  reckoned  upon  for  a  day.  When,  however,  the  Board 
disregarded  his  nominations,  especially  that  of  his  bully, 
John  Ring,  as  "Principal  Vaccinator  and  Inspector  of 
Stations,"  he  at  once  severed  his  connection  with  the 
Establishment ;  "  since,"  in  his  own  words,  "  he  found 
that  he  was  to  have  nothing  to  do,  and  that  his  office 
was  only  a  name."  "  My  not  being  a  member  of  the 


456  VACCINATION. 


British  Vaccine  Establishment  will,"  he  wrote,  "  astonish 
the  world ;  and  no  one  in  it  can  be  more  astonished  than 
myself " ;  but  so  far  as  can  be  discerned,  the  astonish- 
ment was  chiefly  limited  to  himself.  Evanescent  and 
futile  is  the  astonishment  of  the  world  under  most  cir- 
cumstances, and  had  the  public  opinion  of  the  time  been 
consulted,  there  is  little  doubt  that  it  would  have  gone 
with  the  Board  against  Jenner. 

Moore  was,  therefore,  promoted  to  Jenner's  place  as 
Director  of  the  National  Vaccine  Establishment,  in  sub- 
ordination to  the  Board  of  Physicians  and  Surgeons. 
Seven  stations,  with  seven  superintendent  surgeons,  were 
opened  in  London  for  vaccinating  all  who  should  apply, 
and  for  collecting  and  distributing  virus. 

At  first  [writes  Moore]  the  applicants  for  Vaccination  at  the 
various  stations  were  not  numerous,  not  amounting  to  3,000  a 
year ;  but,  by  continued  exertions,  and  the  declension  of  prejudice, 
the  numbers  regularly  increased,  and  7,771  persons  were  vaccinated 
in  London  in  the  year  1816.* 

These  numbers  are  significant,  as  indicating  the  extent 
of  the  collapse  of  vaccination,  and  how  little  the  continu- 
ous decline  of  smallpox  in  London  was  due  to  its 
extension. 

Moore  was  a  shrewd  tactician.  He  had  the  sense  to 
recognise  that  if  there  was  anything  in  vaccination,  it 
was  folly  to  stand  at  variance  with  Jenner ;  and  by  per- 
suading him  that  he  exaggerated  the  offence  implied  in 
the  policy  of  the  Board,  he  gradually  soothed  his  feelings 
and  led  him  into  a  long  and  confidential  correspondence. 
Jenner,  on  his  side,  finding  that  nothing  resulted  from 
his  sulks,  relaxed,  and  from  time  to  time  favoured  the 
Board  with  the  light  of  his  countenance  and  counsels. 

The  national  endowment  of  vaccination  affected  pre- 
judicially all  other  enterprises  in  the  same  line.  What 
remained  of  the  Royal  Jennerian  Society  withered  up, 
and  the  conductors  of  the  London  Vaccine  Institution 
found  the  collection  of  subscriptions  almost  impossible. 
It  was  naturally  objected  by  those  solicited,  "  Why  should 

*  History  and  Practice  of  Vaccination,  p.  223. 


THE  NATIONAL  VACCINE  ESTABLISHMENT.         457 

we  be  asked  to  subscribe  for  what  Government  has 
already  provided  ? "  But  with  Dr.  John  Walker,  the 
director  of  the  London  Institution,  vaccination  was  a 
fanaticism,  and  he  was  ready  to  live  on  bread  and  water 
rather  than  withdraw  from  the  promotion  of  what  he 
was  persuaded  was  a  work  of  salvation.  He.  therefore 
struggled  on,  in  spite  of  discouragement  and  petty  means, 
and  as  the  inability  of  the  Government  Establishment 
to  meet  demands  became  manifest,  whether  from  excess 
of  dignity  or  apathy,  the  Quaker  Institution,  as  it  was 
called,  began  to  thrive,  to  acquire  the  confidence  alike 
of  the  medical  profession  and  the  public,  and  to  rival  in 
business  the  Establishment  itself. 

As  for  the  investigation  promised  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, it  was  never  even  attempted.  Jenner's  anxiety 
was  superfluous.  When  a  case  of  smallpox,  or  injury,  or 
death  after  vaccination  was  reported,  it  was  the  recog- 
nised formula  to  assert  either  some  defect  in  the  operation, 
or  the  virus,  or  some  cause,  or  any  cause  ab  extra  rather 
than  allow  the  Jennerian  principle  to  suffer.  As  an 
illustration  of  the  procedure  of  the  Board  in  this  respect, 
we  have  the  instance  of  Mr.  Thomas  Brown,  surgeon, 
Musselburgh,  as  served  up  in  Moore's  insolence — 

The  Vaccine  was  in  two  years  spread  over  Scotland.  After  a 
time,  however,  one  croaking  voice  was  raised  to  disturb  the  general 
concord.  Mr.  Brown,  who  was  fretting  in  obscurity  at  Mussel- 
burgh,  published  a  book  in  1809  to  maintain  that  the  Vaccine  only 
possessed  the  property  of  .preventing  Smallpox  temporarily ;  that 
in  three  years  its  influence  declined ;  and  in  five  or  six,  hardly  any 
security  against  Smallpox  remained. 

Brown  submitted  his  cases  to  the  Board,  but  they  met 
with  no  attention. 

In  this  extremity  [continues  Moorej  he  wrote  a  scurrilous  accusa- 
tion of  the  National  Vaccine  Establishment  to  the  Secretary  of 
State,  which  was  referred  to  the  Board.  When  they  met,  the 
Eegistrar  read  it,  and  then  tied  it  up  with  red  tape  among  that 
mass  of  papers  which  are  consigned  to  rest.* 

Could  more  be  expressed  in  less  ?  Thus  was  Brown,  the 
representative  of  true  science  and  enlightened  and  honest 

*  History  and  Practice  of  Vaccination,  p.  226. 


458  VACCINATION. 


inquiry,  set  at  naught  and  traduced  by  a  Board  endowed 
for  investigation  !  Nor,  in  saying  so,  do  I  speak  simply 
as  an  antagonist  of  vaccination.  Brown  was  no  anti- 
vaccinist.  What  he  contended  for  is  now  everywhere 
admitted  by  vaccinists.  They  allow  that  the  protection 
afforded  by  vaccination  is  temporary,  and  that  it  is 
necessary  to  renew  its  prophylaxy  from  time  to  time. 
The  practice  of  revaccination  is  based  on  the  verity  of 
Brown's  contention,  and  yet,  according  to  Moore,  he  was 
a  vain -glorious  and  scurrilous  fellow,  and  by  Jenner 
was  pronounced  "an  object  of  commiseration  rather  than 
resentment." 

As  purveyors  of  virus,  too,  the  Establishment  fell 
behind  Walker's  Institution,  and  the  Quakers'  pox  had 
the  preference  among  connoisseurs  in  the  article.  Jenner 
wrote  to  Moore,  5th  March,  1816 — 

The  Matter  sent  out  by  the  National  Vaccine  Establishment  is 
much  complained  of.  I  was  applied  to  a  few  weeks  since  by  the 
surgeons  of  the  hospital  at  Gloucester  for  some  Vaccine  Matter, 
and  their  request  was  accompanied  by  the  observation,  "  That 
after  using  thirty  points  sent  from  town,  not  a  single  pustule  was 
produced." 

To  account  for  such  failures,  it  began  to  be  reported 
that  the  virus  was  gradually  losing  its  virtue  in  transit 
through  many  arms ;  but,  continued  Jenner — 

Medical  men  are  more  expert  than  others  in  discovering  causes 
without  the  fatigue  of  much  thinking,  and  in  the  present  instance 
they  have  all  hit  upon  the  wrong  one— no  great  wonder.  They 
attribute  the  lessened  activity  of  the  Matter,  and  its  disposition  to 
produce  imperfect  vesicles,  to  the  great  length  of  time  which  has 
elapsed  since  it  was  taken  from  the  cow,  and  to  the  immense 
number  of  human  subjects  through  whom  it  has  passed.  This  is  a 
conjecture,  and  I  can  destroy  it  by  facts.  The  Matter  may  undergo 
a  change  that  may  render  it  unfit  for  further  use  by  passing  even 
from  one  individual  to  another ;  and  this  was  as  likely  to  happen 
in  the  first  year  of  Vaccination  as  the  twentieth.  There  are  medical 
men  who  will  take  anything  they  can  catch  under  the  mere  name 
of  Vaccine  Matter,  or  from  pustules  incorrect  in  character.  It  is 
from  the  spread  of  such  Matter  that  the  dissatisfaction  of  which  I 
speak  has  arisen.* 

*  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner ,  vol.  ii.,  p.  398. 


THE  NATIONAL  VACCINE  ESTABLISHMENT.         459 

When  we  refer  to  the  record  of  the  National  Vaccine 
Establishment,  there  is  little  reason  for  surprise  over  its 
inefficiency.  The  House  of  Commons,  having  voted  the 
endowment  of  £3,000  a-year,  the  Government  committed 
the  organisation  of  the  Establishment  and  the  adminis- 
tration of  its  funds  to  the  heads  of  the  Royal  College  of 
Physicians.  How  the  £3,000  a-year  was  disposed  of, 
came  to  light  in  1822,  when  the  accounts  were  published. 
The  statement  stood  thus  for  1821,  representing  what 
had  gone  on  during  the  past  twelve  years — 

3b  SJ 

PHYSICIANS. — Sir  Henry  Halford,  Bart 100 

Dr.  Frampton 100 

Dr.  Thomas  Hume 100 

Dr.  Charles  Badham 100 

Dr.  E.Lloyd 100 

500 

SURGEONS. — Sir  Everard  Home 100 

Sir  W.  Blizard 100 

Henry  Cline  100 

300 

EEGISTRAR. — James  Hervey,  M.D 300 

DIRECTOR. —  James  Moore 200 

SECRETARY. — C.  Murray 50 

f      550 

VACCINATORS.— One  at  ,£150 150 

Five,,     100 500 

One  „       75  75 

Six    „       50 300 

1,025 

HOUSEKEEPER  40 

MESSENGER  52 

Eent  of  furnished  House,  18  Percy  Street 260 

352 

Printing,  stationery,  coal,  candle,  &c —      183 

Total...  ..  £2,910 


The  accounts,  though  they  revealed  what  was  suspected, 
were  widely  denounced  as  scandalous.  Parliament  voted 
£3,000  a-year  to  extend  vaccination  among  the  poor,  and 
here  were  a  set  of  physicians  and  surgeons  pocketing 
£800  of  it,  and  muddling  away  the  greater  part  of  the 
remainder.  They  affected  to  regard  vaccination  as  the 


460  VACCINATION. 


deliverance  of  mankind  from  the  scourge  of  smallpox, 
and  yet  they  had  not  hesitated  to  appropriate  the  means 
provided  for  its  diffusion !  There  was  scarcely  the  pre- 
tence of  work  for  wages.  The  Board  met  once  a  week, 
but  the  attendance  was  irregular,  and  at  each  member's 
discretion.  The  eight  hundred-a-yearers  dropped  in  when 
convenient  for  gossip,  and  to  ask  what  was  doing.  When 
set  upon  their  defence,  the  argument  was  that  the  public 
were  distrustful  of  vaccination,  and  that  to  inspire  con- 
fidence it  was  necessary  that  the  Establishment  should 
have  the  benefit  of  the  ostensible  support  of  the  College  of 
Physicians  and  the  College  of  Surgeons,  for  which  the 
honorarium  of  £100  annually  to  each  of  their  representa- 
tives was  by  no  means  excessive.  In  reply,  it  was  pointed 
out  that  Dr.  Walker, supported  by  voluntary  contributions, 
collected  with  difficulty,  and  with  less  than  the  pay  of  many 
an  artizan,  had  done  more  for  vaccination  in  London  and 
the  country,  and  was  more  respected  and  trusted,  than  the 
Establishment  with  all  the  prestige  of  corporate  authority. 
As  the  result  of  many  protests,  the  waste  of  public 
money  was  brought  before  the  House  of  Commons  by 
Joseph  Hume.  It  was  Mr.  Hume's  distinction  that,  with 
strong  good  sense  and  invincible  patience,  he  upheld  the 
standard  of  honesty  in  public  finance,  holding  that  it 
was  as  wrong  to  defraud  the  nation  as  to  defraud  an 
individual ;  and  that  it  was  as  foolish  (not  to  say  more 
wicked)  to  pay  away  the  people's  money  for  nothing,  as 
to  throw  away  one's  own.  The  principle,  so  obviously 
indisputable,  and  yet  so  shamelessly  violated  in  every 
department  of  the  State,  was  enforced  in  detail  by  Mr. 
Hume  with  a  persistency  and  success  that  has  never  been 
surpassed,  and,  I  fear,  never  appreciated  as  deserved.  He 
showed  that  patriotism  is  a  practical  virtue,  instead  of  a 
sentimental  pretext  for  public  plunder,  and  taught  honour 
to  placemen  to  whom  honour  was  unknown.  Appro- 
priately, therefore,  Mr.  Hume  led  the  charge  against  the 
National  Vaccine  Establishment,  and  in  1827  the  annual 
vote  was  reduced  from  £3,000  to  £2,500,  £300  of  the 
£500  being  saved  by  knocking  off  two  useless  physicians 


THE  NATIONAL  VACCINE  ESTABLISHMENT.         461 

and  one  useless  surgeon.  Even  then  the  extravagance 
that  remained  continued  to  excite  indignation,  the  con- 
sequences of  which  are  recorded  in  a  "  Report  from  the 
Select  Committee  on  the  Vaccine  Board,  with  the  Minutes 
of  Evidence,  ordered  by  the  House  of  Commons  to  be 
printed,  28th  August,  1833."  If  space  allowed,  it  would 
be  easy  to  linger  over  the  disclosures  of  this  Committee. 
Suffice  it  to  say,  that  Dr.  George  Gregory,  of  the  Small- 
pox Hospital,  held  that  the  whole  work  of  the  Board 
might  be  done  handsomely  on  £1,200  a-year.  The  Com- 
mittee, however,  shrank  from  such  a  severe  exercise  of 
economy,  and  recommended  the  provision  of  the  follow- 
ing staff  and  expenses  — 

Vaccinators  at  Stations  in  London  (a  sum  which  will 

probably  admit  of  reduction)  ........................  ,£900 

°      Qualine(l  on  occasion  to  exchange  duties  < 


Messenger  ......................................................       55 

Offices,  rent  of  ..................................................     100 

Incidental  expenses  ..........................................     150 

Total  ..............................  £1,605 

The  Committee  observed  that  the  Board  might  consist 
of  two  physicians  and  one  surgeon,  whose1  duties,  not 
being  onerous,  might  be  discharged  gratuitously.  As  the 
Committee  was  more  loose-handed  than  Dr.  Gregory,  so 
the  Commons  were  laxer  than  the  Committee.  The 
President  and  a  Censor  of  the  College  of  Physicians,  and 
the  President  of  the  College  of  Surgeons,  wrere  suffered 
to  continue  their  £100  a-year  each,  and  the  annual  sub- 
sidy for  the  Establishment  stood  fixed  at  £2,200,  until 
vaccination,  under  the  disguise  of  sanitation,  developed 
into  the  monstrous  proportions  with  which  we  are  at 
this  day  afflicted. 

There  is  much  talk  prevalent  in  favour  of  "  the  endow- 
ment of  research  ;"  but  what  may  come  of  such  endow- 
ment, when  not  sharply  looked  after,  is  manifest  in  the 
example  of  the  National  Vaccine  Establishment.  The 
investigation,  assumed  to  start  with,  was  never  pursued  ; 
and  the  guardianship  of  the  public  interest  undertaken 


462  VACCINATION. 


by  the  Colleges  of  Physicians  and  Surgeons  was  never 
anything  but  make-believe.  Annual  Reports  were  pre- 
sented to  Parliament,  signed  by  the  heads  of  the  Estab- 
lishment, but  of  research  they  bore  no  trace,  and  many 
of  them  might  have  been  dashed  off  by  the  Registrar  in 
the  course  of  an  hour.  Destitute  of  any  scientific  merit, 
these  reports  yet  afford  some  curious  glimpses  of  what 
was  going  on  from  year  to  year,  with  indications  of  the 
chief  points  of  resistance  encountered  by  the  practice  of 
vaccination  ;  and,  in  turning  over  the  series  from  1810 
to  1840,  I  have  made  the  following  notes,  which  may 
be  read,  perhaps,  with  interest. 

VARIOLATION. 

The  chief  resistance  proceeded  from  the  inoculators 
with  smallpox;  indeed,  with  the  exception  of  apathy, 
there  might  be  said  to  be  no  other  resistance.  Hence  we 
read  under  the  several  dates  — 


.  —  During  1809,  the  surgeons  vaccinated  1,493  persons.  We 
are  sorry  to  have  to  relate  a  decline  of  Vaccination  in  the  Metro- 
polis, and  an  apparent  indisposition  to  the  practice  of  it  ;  and  to 
express  regret  that  there  should  be  evil-disposed  persons,  who  are 
endeavouring  to  frustrate  His  Majesty's  intentions  by  alarming 
the  misinformed  with  stories  which  they  know  to  be  false. 

1812.  —  We  have  reason  to  ascribe  the  increase  of  Smallpox  in 
London  during  last  year  to  the  rash  and  inconsiderate  manner  in 
which  great  numbers  are  still  inoculated  for  the  Smallpox,  and 
afterwards  required  to  attend  two  or  three  times  a  week  at  the 
place  of  inoculation  in  every  stage  of  their  illness.  The  practice  of 
Inoculation  is  the  great  means  whereby  Smallpox  is  kept  in  exist- 
ence, and  its  infection  propagated  to  persons  and  places  where  it 
would  not  otherwise  be  seen. 

1814.  —  The  Board  has  with  great  regret  to  observe  that,  although 
the  punishment  of  three  months'  imprisonment  was  awarded  against 
Sophia  Vantandillo,  for  carrying  her  child,  whilst  under  the  influence 
of  Smallpox,  through  the  streets,  (which  infected  many  others, 
eight  of  whom  died)  the  unwary  are  still  enticed  by  the  hand-bills 
of^shameless  empirics  to  submit  their  children  to  Variolous  Inocula- 
tion. It  is,  however,  to  be  hoped  that  the  above  sentence  passed 
by  the  Court  of  King's  Bench,  which  the  Board  has  taken  every 
method  of  promulgating,  may  produce  considerable  benefit.  The 
Board  selected  Sophia  Vantandillo  as  a  proper  example  on  account 
of  the  extent  of  the  mischief  occasioned  by  her  misconduct  ;  and 


THE  NATIONAL  VACCINE  ESTABLISHMENT.         463 

that  this  prosecution,  followed  by  a  lenient  punishment,  may 
prevent  any  further  wilful  exposure  of  inoculated  persons,  is  its 
fervent  wish.  The  Board  at  the  same  time  prosecuted  Mr.  Burnet, 
who  inoculated  the  child,  and  who  has  long  circulated  most  mis- 
chievous and  offensive  handbills,  offering  to  inoculate  persons  with 
Smallpox  gratis,  and  stigmatising  Vaccination  as  productive  of  the 
most  loathsome  disease.  This  practitioner  having  suffered  judg- 
ment to  go  by  default,  has  been  sentenced  by  the  Court  of  King's 
Bench  to  six  months'  imprisonment. 

The  whole  of  the  expenses  incident  to  this  Establishment  for 
1814  have  been  defrayed  by  the  vote  of  last  year,  but  the  Board 
regrets  that  in  consequence  of  the  recent  prosecutions  and  convic- 
tions, and  the  measures  adopted  for  the  more  effectual  extension 
of  the  practice  of  vaccination  throughout  the  Empire,  an  addition 
of  .£500  to  the  annual  grant  will  be  necessary. 

1815. — In  Edinburgh,  Glasgow,  and  Norwich,  Inoculation  is 
disused,  and,  in  consequence,  the  Smallpox  is  scarcely  known.  In 
the  country  about  Aberystwith  in  Wales,  and  Bawtry  in  York- 
shire, it  has  entirely  disappeared.  The  reverse  is,  unhappily,  the 
case  in  Portsmouth,  Bristol,  and  London.  In  the  Metropolis  alone 
the  mortality  may  be  estimated  at  1,000  annually ;  perhaps  through- 
out the  United  Kingdom  it  is  not  less  than  ten  times  that  number. 
It  appears  to  us  that  this  waste  of  human  life  can  be  prevented 
only  by  such  legislative  enactments  as  will  entirely  put  a  stop  to 
Inoculation  with  Smallpox. 

That  smallpox  was  increased  by  variolation  we  have 
no  reason  to  doubt,  notwithstanding  the  facj;  that  toward 
the  close  of  the  last  century,  when  variolation  was  most 
practised,  smallpox  was  steadily  falling-off;  but  to  ascribe 
the  existence  and  persistence  of  smallpox  to  variolation 
was  absurd.  Smallpox  was  a  widely-diffused  disease 
before  variolation  was  introduced  to  anticipate  and  mini- 
mise it. 

1817. — The  pernicious  practice  of  Smallpox  Inoculation,  now 
very  generally  relinquished  by  the  medical  profession,  is  only 
persisted  in  by  a  very  few  of  the  least  creditable  class  of  practi- 
tioners, and  is  usually  carried  on  clandestinely ;  yet  the  Board  are 
concerned  to  state  that  this  destructive  operation  is  now  performed 
for  gain  by  itinerant  Empirics,  Farriers,  Publicans,  Nurses,  low, 
cunning  people  of  both  sexes,  and  of  various  descriptions.  And 
such  is  the  infatuation  of  the  poor  and  ignorant,  that  many  of  them 
carry  their  infants  to  be  inoculated  by  those  who  only  know  how 
to  inflict,  but  not  how  to  assuage,  the  violence  of  Smallpox.  The 
consequence  has  been  that  many  have  perished  under  their  manage- 
ment ;  and  the  disease  in  particular  districts  has  been  widely 


464  VACCINATION. 


disseminated.  As  this  iniquitous  conduct  has  prevailed  much  in 
London,  an  epidemic  of  Smallpox  was  last  year  excited  among- 
those  who  were  not  secured  by  Vaccination*  and  1,051  persons 
died  of  the  disease. 

1836. — Only  300  died  of  Smallpox  in  London  in  the  course  of 
last  year ;  and  it  is  probable  that  this  mortality,  however  compara- 
tively small,  is  owing  to  the  continued  partial  practice  of  Inoculation, 
which  is  liable  to  disseminate  far  and  wide  its  contagious  influence, 
to  the  imminent  danger  of  all  who  have  not  been  protected  by 
previous  Vaccination,  or  by  having  had  Smallpox  already. 

Validation  was  made  a  penal  offence  in  1840,  and 
became  less  available  as  an  excuse  for  the  persistence  of 
smallpox  in  defiance  of  vaccination. 

FAILURE  OF  VACCINATION. 

Accepting  Jenner's  revelation,  the  heads  of  the  medical 
profession  in  London  assured  the  public,  in  a  manifesto 
in  1800,  that  "  those  persons  who  have  had  Cowpox  are 
perfectly  secure  from  the  future  infection  of  Smallpox." 
It  was  a  rash  assertion.  Proofs  of  its  untruth  were  not 
slow  to  appear.  At  first  they  were  denied,  then  explained 
away,  and  then  admitted  under  qualifications  more  or 
less  adroit.  When,  in  1808,  the  National  Vaccine  Estab- 
lishment was  constituted,  the  fact  of  the  failure  of  Vac- 
cination to  answer  to  its  original  promise  was  generally 
recognised.  Nevertheless,  the  reports  of  the  Establish- 
ment exhibit  much  ingenious  wriggling  and  attempts  to 
out-lie  Nature.  For  example — 

1811. — That  in  some  instances  Smallpox  has  affected  persons 
who  have  been  most  carefully  vaccinated,  is  sufficiently  established ; 
nor  ought  we  to  be  surprised  at  this,  when  we  consider  that  Inocula- 
tion for  Smallpox  sometimes  fails,  and  that  several  cases  may  be 
produced  in  which  persons  have  been  affected  with  the  natural 
disease  more  than  once  in  the  course  of  life.  The  Board  have 
infinite  satisfaction  in  stating  the  two  following  important  and 
decisive  facts  in  proof  of  the  efficacy  and  safety  of  Vaccination, 
namely,  that  in  the  cases  which  have  come  to  their  knowledge, 
Smallpox  after  Vaccination,  with  a  very  few  exceptions,  has  been 
a  mild  disease,  and  that  out  of  the  many  hundred  thousand  persons 
vaccinated,  not  a  single  authenticated  instance  has  been  com- 
municated to  them  of  the  occurrence  of  fatal  Smallpox  after 
Vaccination. 

The  Board  have  great  pleasure  in  stating  that  the  money  granted 


THE  NATIONAL  VACCINE  ESTABLISHMENT.         465 

by  Parliament  during  the  last  session  has  been  sufficient  to  defray 
the  expenses  of  the  year  1811,  and  they  are  of  opinion  that  the 
same  sum  will  be  adequate  to  the  expenditure  of  the  current  year. 

There  were  3,148  vaccinations  effected  under  the  Board 
in  1811,  which  was  at  the  rate  of  about  £1  a-head. 

Moore,  after  reporting  some  cases  of  smallpox  after 
vaccination,  at  St.  Osyth,  in  Essex,  went  on  to  say — 

1816. — Some  very  rare  instances  of  failures  in  Vaccination,  as 
exceptions  to  a  general  law,  may  be  expected  as  long  as  Smallpox 
is  prevalent ;  since  it  has  been  fully  ascertained  that  when  the  air 
is  strongly  impregnated  with  the  infectious  vapour  of  Smallpox, 
some  of  those  who  have  had  the  disease  are  attacked  a  second  time. 

1818.— From  the  foundation  of  this  Establishment  in  1808  to  the 
present  year  there  have  been  vaccinated  52,253  persons  at  the 
stations  in  London.  Only  four  of  these  are  yet  known  to  have  had 
Smallpox  afterwards,  and  these  were  never  very  seriously  ill. 

1819. — The  testimonies  of  some  of  our  correspondents  concur  in 
showing  that  great  numbers  of  persons  who  had  been  vaccinated 
have  been  subsequently  seized  with  a  disease  presenting  all  the 
essential  characters  of  Smallpox ;  but  that  in  the  great  majority  of 
such  cases,  the  disease  has  been  of  comparatively  short  duration, 
unattended  by  symptoms  of  danger.  In  several  of  these  cases, 
however,  the  malady  has  been  prolonged  to  its  ordinary  period, 
and  in  eight  reported  cases  it  has  proved  fatal.  It  appears  to  us 
to  be  fairly  established  that  the  disposition  in  the  vaccinated  to  be 
thus  affected  by  the  contagion  of  Smallpox  does  nqfc  depend  upon 
the  time  that  has  elapsed  after  Vaccination,  since  some  persons 
have  been  so  affected  who  had  recently  been  vaccinated,  whilst 
others  who  had  been  vaccinated  eighteen  and  twenty  years  have 
been  variolated,  and  exposed  to  contagion  with  impunity. 

1820. — It  is  true  that  we  have  received  accounts  from  different 
parts  of  the  country  of  numerous  cases  of  Smallpox  having  occurred 
after  Vaccination,  and  we  cannot  doubt  that  the  prejudices  of  the 
people  against  this  preventive  are  assignable  (and  not  altogether 
unreasonably,  perhaps)  to  this  cause.  These  cases  the  Board  have 
industriously  investigated,  and  though  it  appears  that  many  of 
them  rest  only  on  hearsay  evidence,  and  that  others  seem  to  have 
undergone  the  Vaccine  Process  imperfectly,  yet  after  every  reason- 
able deduction,  we  are  compelled  to  allow  that  too  many  still 
remain  on  undeniable  proof  to  leave  any  doubt  that  the  pretensions 
of  Vaccination,  to  the  merit  of  a  perfect  and  exclusive  security  in 
all  cases  against  Smallpox,  were  at  first  admitted  too  unreservedly. 

1825.— That  a  considerable  number  of  persons  have  had  Small- 
pox after  having  been  vaccinated,  we  are  ready  to  admit ;  although 
of  cases  of  this  kind,  a  large  majority  are  found  on  examina- 
tion to  be  without  that  test  of  the  operation  being  performed 
30 


466  VACCINATION. 


successfully  and  effectually,  which  all  agree  to  be  necessary  to 
perfect  security.  Vaccination,  therefore,  it  will  be  said,  does  not 
afford  an  absolute  and  perfect  security.  We  do  not  present  it  to 
the  world  with  that  pretension,  but  we  declare  it  to  be  the  least 
imperfect  of  the  resources  we  possess  for  encountering  the  disease. 

1827. — It  is  true,  cases  are  reported  to  us  very  often  of  the 
occurrence  of  Smallpox  after  Vaccination ;  but  we  have  reason  to 
believe  that  the  number  of  those  who  fall  into  this  safe,  though 
sometimes  severe  disease,  after  Vaccination,  is  not  greater  than 
that  of  those  who  formerly  died  by  Inoculation  whilst  that  practice 
prevailed. 

1833. — Of  an  equal  number  of  persons  vaccinated  and  variolated, 
only  so  many  of  the  former  will  be  capable  of  taking  the  Smallpox 
afterwards,  and  that  in  a  safe  degree  of  the  disease,  as  are  found 
to  die  by  the  latter. 

1836. — If  300  children  be  vaccinated,  one  will  be  susceptible  of 
Smallpox  afterwards,  but  only  in  a  mild  and  perfectly  safe  form, 
whereas  if  300  be  variolated,  one  will  surely  die. 

As  evolutions  from  inner  consciousness,  the  statistics 
of  Variolation  and  Vaccination  under  1827,  1833,  and 
1836  are  noteworthy.  They  illustrate  the  facility  of  the 
Board  at  the  discovery  of  what  was  thought  ought  to  be 
true. 

DEVELOPMENT  OF  A  FABULOUS  SALVATION. 

1811. — Previous  to  the  discovery  of  Vaccination,  the  average 
number  of  deaths  by  Smallpox  within  the  London  bills  of  mortality 
was  2,000  annually;  whereas  during  1811,  only  751  died  of  the 
disease,  notwithstanding  the  increase  of  population. 

1818. — During  the  year,  6,289  have  been  vaccinated  in  London 
and  the  vicinity;  and  the  Board  have  much  satisfaction  in  adducing 
unequivocal  evidence  of  the  increasing  advantages  of  the  Jennerian 
discovery;  for  it  appears  from  the  bills  of  mortality  of  London 
that,  instead  of  2,000  deaths  by  Smallpox,  which  was  the  annual 
average  previous  to  the  practice  of  Vaccination,  there  died  in  1818 
only  421. 

That,  previous  to  the  introduction  of  vaccination,  2,000 
was  the  average  annual  death-rate  from  smallpox  in 
London  is  a  statement  that  requires  definition.  At  an 
early  date  the  number  is  under  the  mark,  and  at  a  later 
it  is  over  the  mark.  Dr.  Farr  delivers  the  truth  in  these 
words — 

Smallpox  attained  its  maximum  mortality  after  Inoculation  was 
introduced.  The  annual  deaths  from  Smallpox  in  London,  from 


THE  NATIONAL  VACCINE  ESTABLISHMENT.         467 

1760  to  1779,  were  on  an  average  2,323.  In  the  next  twenty  years, 
1780  to  1799,  they  declined  to  1,740.  The  disease,  therefore,  began 
to  grow  less  fatal  before  Vaccination  was  discovered,  indicating, 
together  with  the  diminution  of  fevers,  the  general  improvement 
of  health  then  taking  place. 

Bearing  Dr.  Farr's  figures  in  mind  (and  not  forgetting 
the  2,000  adduced  by  the  Board  in  the  reports  for  1811 
and  1818),  what  does  the  reader  think  of  the  following 
audacious  attempts  on  public  credulity  ? — 

1826. — From  the  quantity  of  vaccine  lymph  distributed,  we  are 
led  to  presume  the  practice  of  Vaccination  is  becoming  daily  more 
general ;  and  the  inference  is  still  further  confirmed  by  the  fact 
that  in  1826,  only  503  deaths  have  occurred  from  Smallpox  within 
the  bills  of  mortality ;  whereas  in  the  preceding  year,  1,299  persons 
are  recorded  as  having  fallen  victims  to  the  loathsome  disease. 
The  whole  of  this  difference  ought  not,  perhaps,  in  candour  to  be 
attributed  to  the  influence  of  Vaccination ;  for  Smallpox  during 
1825  assumed  a  peculiarly  malignant  character ;  and  there  were 
more  instances  of  the  distemper  occurring  twice  in  the  same  indi- 
vidual than  had  ever  been  reported  to  us  before.  But  when  we 
reflect  that  before  the  introduction  of  Vaccination  the  average 
number  of  deaths  from  Smallpox  in  London  was  annually  about 
4,000,  no  stronger  argument  can  reasonably  be  demanded  in  favour 
of  the  value  of  this  important  discovery.  Nor  can  any  more  strik- 
ing proof  be  given  of  the  paternal  care  of  the  Government  to  protect 
the  people  at  home  and  abroad  from  this  destructive  disease  than 
the  establishment  and  maintenance  of  this  Board. 

The  bouncing  falsehood,  having  passed  muster,  was 
repeated  with  enlargement  at  a  suitable  interval — 

1834. — Only  334  deaths  by  Smallpox  have  been  reported,  a 
number  considerably  less  than  have  died  in  any  year  since  the 
introduction  of  Vaccination,  and  falling  short  by  at  least  4,000  of 
the  average  of  deaths  annually  by  Smallpox  in  London  before  the 
protecting  influence  of  Cowpox  was  discovered  and  promulgated. 

And  again  it  appeared  with  a  fresh  touch  of  exaggera- 
tion— 

1836. — The  annual  loss  of  life  by  Smallpox  in  the  Metropolis 
before  Vaccination  was  established  exceeded  5,000,  whereas,  in  the 
course  of  last  year,  only  300  died  of  the  distemper. 

Impunity  being  apparently  assured,  the  fable  came  to 
be  delivered  as  matter-of-course,  thus — 

1839.— Formerly  5,000  died  annually  of  Smallpox  within  the 


468  VACCINATION. 


London  bills  of  mortality ;  but  since  Vaccination  superseded 
Variolation,  the  number  has  gradually  decreased,  until  it  amounted 
to  only  200  in  the  year  1837.  In  the  course  of  the  year  that  has 
terminated  (during  which  Smallpox  prevailed  epidemically),  there 
died  800 ;  not  one  more,  after  all,  than  one-sixth  of  the  number 
who  died  annually  [that  is  to  say,  4,800]  during  the  prevalence  of 
Variolation,  notwithstanding  the  increased  population  of  London 
and  its  environs.  By  a  careful  retrospect,  we  are,  therefore, 
justified  in  stating  that  4,000  lives  are  saved  every  year  in  London ,. 
since  Vaccination  so  largely  superseded  Variolation. 

The  fall  in  smallpox  that  set  in  toward  the  close  of 
last  century  was  not  confined  to  London,  but  extended 
to  many  European  populations.  It  began  before  vaccina- 
tion was  heard  of,  and  continued  independently  of  it, 
though  the  vaccinators  eagerly  claimed  the  phenomenon 
as  the  result  of  their  superfluous  efforts.  The  claim  was 
absurd  as  concerned  London,  for  it  plainly  appears  that 
vaccination  during  the  years  in  question  never  overtook, 
or  even  approached,  the  metropolitan  birth-rate.  Here 
is  the  record  of  the  vaccinations  effected  by  the  Establish- 
ment in  five  years — 

1818         1819          1820         1821          1822        Total. 


5,490        7,874        6,054        6,627        8,230  =  34,275 

The  entire  vaccinations  in  five  years  not  equalling  the 
London  births  in  any  one  year !  There  were,  we  dare 
say,  as  many  more  vaccinated  by  voluntary  effort ;  but 
the  figures,  however  extended,  cannot  be  got  to  cover 
the  immense  mass  of  lower-class  Londoners,  who  then, 
as  now,  were  the  chief  factors  of  smallpox.  What  I  say 
emphatically  is,  the  National  Vaccine  Establishment 
had  as  much  influence  on  London  smallpox  as  the  Holy 
Alliance. 

POCK-MARKED  FACES. 

One  of  the  arguments  for  vaccination  at  this  day  runs 
thus — "  How  do  you  account  for  the  absence  of  pock- 
marked faces  ?  When  I  was  young,  forty  years  ago, 
nothing  wras  commoner  than  countenances  disfigured  by 
smallpox."  Occasionally  the  reminiscence  is  tranferred 
to  a  mother  or  grandmother,  who  is  reported  to  have 


THE  NATIONAL  VACCINE  ESTABLISHMENT.         469 

said  that  she  remembered  when  every  third  or  fourth 
person  was  pitted. 

We  need  not  take  seriously  the  motherly  or  grand- 
motherly reminiscences,  so  apt  to  be  touched  with  the 
glamour  of  years.  Confining  ourselves  to  living  memo- 
ries, the  owners  thereof  may,  perhaps,  be  surprised  to  learn 
that  the  transformation  for  which  they  personally  avouch 
was  effected  before  they  were  born,  or  were  qualified  ob- 
servers; and  before  vaccination  was  sufficiently  practised 
to  have  wrought  the  change ;  and  here  is  the  evidence,  as 
set  forth  in  the  reports  of  the  National  Vaccine  Establish- 
ment, and  printed  by  order  of  the  House  of  Commons. 
Under  the  following  dates  we  read — 

1822. — As  a  proof  of  the  protecting  influence  of  Vaccination,  we 
appeal  confidently  to  all  who  frequent  theatres  and  crowded 
assemblies  to  admit  that  they  do  not  discover  in  the  rising  genera- 
tion any  longer  that  disfigurement  of  the  human  face  which  was 
obvious  everywhere  some  years  since. 

1825.— The  deaths  by  Smallpox  amounted  to  1,299  in  1825,  a 
much  greater  number  than  has  been  reported  for  some  years  past. 
From  this  melancholy  statement  it  is  impossible  to  avoid  the  con- 
clusion that  the  lower  orders  of  society  continue  to  be  prejudiced 
against  Vaccination,  and  allow  Smallpox  to  take  its  course. 

And  yet  what  argument  more  powerful  can  be  urged  in  favour 
of  Vaccination  than  the  daily  remark  which  the  least  observant 
must  make,  that  in  our  churches,  our  theatres,  and  in  every  large 
assemblage  of  the  people,  to  see  a  young  person  bearing  the  marks 
of  Smallpox  is  now  of  extremely  rare  occurrence. 

To  what  can  the  freedom  from  the  vestiges  of  so  loathsome  a 
disease  be  attributed,  but  to  the  protecting  influence  of  Vaccina- 
tion? for  Variolation  has  now  been  disused  by  all  respectable 
practitioners  for  some  time  past. 

1837. — The  rarity  of  an  example  of  disfigurement  by  Smallpox 
now  to  be  found  in  the  theatres,  in  churches,  or  in  any  large 
assemblage  of  the  people,  affords  proof  that  Vaccination  has  lost 
none  of  its  efficacy. 

Pock-marked  faces  are  by  no  means  uncommon  at  this 
day  in  London,  though  their  number  has  diminished 
through  more  careful  nursing  and  the  use  of  well-known 
means  for  preventing  disfigurement ;  and  whoever  cares 
to  pursue  the  inquiry  will  discover  that  the  majority 
of  the  marked  have  been  vaccinated  and  many  re-vac- 


470  VACCINATION. 


cinated — a  proof  that  it  is  not  the  rite  which  prevents 
the  scars. 

The  general  impression  we  derive  from  the  reports  of 
the  Establishment,  1808-40,  is  that  they  proceeded  from 
men  who  were  committed  to  vaccination,  but  had  no 
profound  faith  in  its  efficacy ;  who  were  averse  from  the 
admission  of  its  impotence,  and  ultimately  held  by  it 
as  possibly  the  best  available  defence  against  smallpox. 
With  ample  means  and  opportunities  for  investigation, 
they  made  no  discovery,  nor  achieved  any  advance  in 
practice,  nor  apparently  conceived  that  there  was  either 
discovery  or  advance  to  be  made.  They  accepted  small- 
pox as  a  mysterious  ordinance  of  Nature,  with  cowpox 
for  a  probable  antidote,  and  there  stuck  fast,  thoughtless 
and  helpless.  They  did  not  even  observe  that  smallpox 
was  specially  a  disease  of  the  young  and  the  poor,  nor 
deduce  conclusions  therefrom.  They  had  their  money, 
and  went  through  an  appropriate  routine,  and  there  their 
action  ended. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI. 

THE  NATIONAL  VACCINE   ESTABLISHMENT— 1841-50. 

ALONG  with  the  prohibition  of  Variolous  Inoculation  in 
1840,  Parliament  passed  an  Act  for  the  provision  of 
Vaccination  out  of  the  poor-rate.  A  scheme  had  been 
formulated  and  petitioned  for  by  the  Provincial  Medical 
and  Surgical  Association  in  1838,  with  the  expectation  that 
the  Government  might  be  induced  to  create  a  multitude 
of  places  for  " regularly  educated  vaccinators,  with  suit- 
able salaries,  in  districts  sufficiently  numerous  to  embrace 
the  whole  of  the  poor  population  of  the  country."  The 
House  of  Commons  being  of  a  thrifty  turn  in  those  days, 
did  not  however  favour  such  a  magnificent  development 
of  place  and  pay  under  the  National  Vaccine  Establish- 
ment, and  disposed  of  the  project  by  referring  the 
provision  of  vaccination  to  the  parochial  authorities,  who 


THE  NATIONAL  VACCINE  ESTABLISHMENT.         471 

might  be  trusted  to  do  what  was  needful  with  due  re- 
gard to  economy.  In  every  union,  and  in  every  parish 
that  was  not  in  union,  it  was  provided  that  there  should 
be  one  or  more  medical  practitioners  appointed  by  the 
Guardians  for  the  gratuitous  vaccination  of  the  inhabi- 
tants, with  remuneration  from  the  rates  according  to  the 
number  operated  upon.*  This  accession  to  their  burdens 
met  with  anything  but  welcome  from  the  ratepayers  in 
general.  Contracts  for  vaccination  at  so  much  per  head 
were  submitted  for  competition,  and  those  who  accepted 
the  rite  at  the  public  expense  were  spoken  of  as  paupers, 
and  in  some  places  had  their  names  published  to  "  shame 
them."  To  remove  the  stigma  of  pauperism  from  the 
parish  prophylaxy,  an  Act  was  passed  in  1841  in  which 
it  was  declared  that  public  vaccination  was  not  of  the 
nature  of  "parochial  relief,  alms,  or  charitable  allowance," 
and  did  not  therefore  deprive  the  recipient  of  any  "right 
or  privilege,"  or  subject  him  "  to  any  disability  or  dis- 
qualification whatsoever."  •)• 

The  reports  of  the  National  Vaccine  Establishment 
from  1841  to  1850  continued  to  be  of  the  same  per- 
functory character.  They  usually  started  with  a  pro- 
fession of  confidence  in  vaccination,  after  the  fashion  of 
Mrs.  Micawber's  resolution  never  to  desert  Micawber; 
the  signature  to  which  declaration  by  the  President  and 
Senior  Censor  of  the  Royal  College  of  Physicians,  and 
the  President  of  the  Royal  College  of  Surgeons  being 
accompanied  with  a  douceur  of  £100  to  each.  For  ex- 
ample, we  read — 

1841. — Smallpox  has  prevailed  epidemically  with  considerable 
severity  since  our  last  Report ;  but  we  do  not  abate  an  iota  of  our 
confidence  in  Vaccination  as  the  best  protective  against  its  malig- 
nant influence. 

1845. — The  unabated  confidence  with  which  we  continue  to  re- 
gard Vaccination,  etc.,  etc. 

1847. — Nothing  has  occurred  to  diminish  our  confidence  in  the 
protective  influence  of  Vaccination.  It  is  true  that  Smallpox  has 
now  and  then  reappeared  ;  and  lately  to  an  extent  which  has  called 

*  3  &  4  Viet.,  cap.  59.  t  4  &  5  Viet.,  cap.  32. 


472  VACCINATION. 


for  additional  efforts  on  the  part  of  all  the  officers  of  the  Establish- 
ment ;  but  we  regard  such  recurrence  as  due  to  the  ordinary 
operations  of  those  periodical  influences  which  give  to  the  disease 
its  epidemic  character ;  and  in  some  localities,  as  in  Ireland,  to  that 
distress  with  which  contagious  diseases  are  so  invariably  associatsd. 

The  reporters  apparently  forgot  that  according  to  the 
doctrine  of  which  they  were  the  representatives,  vac- 
cination excluded  the  possibility  of  smallpox  under  what- 
ever circumstances  of  atmosphere,  filth,  or  privation.  If 
only  effective  in  the  absence  of  the  ordinary  conditions  of 
smallpox,  wherein  consisted  the  benefit  of  the  rite  ? 

Ceely  of  Aylesbury  in  1839,  and  Badcock  of  Brighton 
in  1840,  succeeded  in  inoculating  cows  with  smallpox, 
and  the  resulting  virus  was  described  as  cowpox,  and 
used  for  vaccination  far  and  wide.  Apparently  the  pro- 
cedure was  not  approved  by  the  Vaccine  Establishment, 
for  we  read  in  the  report — 

1841. — The  matter  we  employ  is  obtained  by  succession  from 
the  original  virus  communicated  by  Dr.  Jenner  himself,  and  that 
we  find  is  as  effectual  as  ever.  We  may  be  excused  therefore,  we 
hope,  if  we  discourage  an  incautious  dissemination  of  matter 
obtained  from  new  sources,  which  has  not  stood  the  test  of  ample 
experience. 

The  original  virus  communicated  by  Jenner  himself ! 
What  was  it  ?  When  the  National  Vaccine  Establish- 
ment was  instituted  in  1808,  the  virus  in  circulation  in 
London  was  accepted  as  stock,  and  it  certainly  had 
several  origins.  It  was  cowpox  as  discovered  by  Pearson; 
it  was  horsegrease  cowpox  and  horsepox  as  derived  from 
Jenner ;  and  there  is  reason  to  believe  it  was  smallpox 
from  Woodville  and  others.  The  claim,  therefore,  to  the 
possession  of  a  specific  variety  of  matter  communicated 
by  Jenner  was  fictitious. 

Again,  through  the  recurrent  failure  of  vaccination  to 
avert  smallpox,  the  Board  had  to  discountenance  the 
assertion  that  their  virus  had  lost  its  virtue  through 
prolonged  transmission — a  reason  which  led  some  to 
prefer  the  fresh  variolous  stocks  of  Ceely  and  Badcock — 

1840. — The  experience  of  another  year  has  afforded  proofs  of  the 
propriety,  in  the  present  state  of  our  knowledge,  of  preferring 


THE  NATIONAL  VACCINE  ESTABLISHMENT.         473 

Vaccine  Matter,  the  produce  of  the  original  virus  furnished  hy  Dr. 
Jenner,  which  has  now  passed  happily  through  successive  gener- 
ations of  subjects  in  the  course  of  43  years,  and  which  forms  the 
principal  source  of  our  supply,  to  any  which  may  have  been 
recently  taken  from  the  cow. 

Here  we  have  "the  original  virus  furnished  by  Dr. 
Jenner"  set  forth  as  no  more  than  "the  principal  source 
of  supply."  The  reports  are  characterised  by  many 
similar  inconsistencies — 

1845. — We  regard  as  erroneous  the  belief  that  Vaccine  Virus 
undergoes  deterioration  by  being  kept ;  in  proof  of  which  we  are 
prepared  to  establish,  by  unquestionable  documents,  the  striking 
fact,  that  Lymph  which  had  been  conveyed  to  and  from  India  has 
retained  its  protective  properties  wholly  unimpaired  after  a  lapse 
of  20  years. 

Another  vexation  of  the  Board  was  due  to  the  asser- 
tion that  the  protective  virtues  of  vaccination  gradually 
wore  out,  and  that  the  repetition  of  the  rite  was  neces- 
sary for  the  maintenance  of  salvation.  In  the  London 
Medical  Gazette,  2nd  August,  1844,  it  was  proclaimed — 

We  are  sorry  to  announce  the  extensive  prevalence  of  Smallpox 
at  this  time  among  us.  EEVACCINATE,  KEVACCINATE,  say  we. 

Such  advice  was  essentially  heretical  and  damnable ; 
for  Jenner  affirmed  and  maintained — 

That  the  human  frame,  when  once  it  has  felt  the  influence  of 
the  genuine  Cowpox,  is  never  afterwards,  at  any  period  of  its 
existence,  assailable  by  Smallpox. 

If  revaccination  were  possible,  smallpox  after  vaccina- 
tion was  possible;  and  if  so  much  were  conceded,  on  what 
ground  was  vaccination  to  be  defended  ?  Whatever  the 
facts,  the  members  of  the  Board  resolved  to  stand  loyally 
by  the  primitive  Jennerian  doctrine,  and  in  their  Report 
for  1851  thus  testified — 

It  may  be  expedient  to  remind  the  public  of  the  established  fact 
which  the  Board  upon  former  occasions  anxiously  insisted  upon, 
that  the  restriction  of  the  protective  power  of  Vaccination  to  any 
age,  or  to  any  term  of  years,  is  an  hypothesis  contradicted  by  ex- 
perience, and  wholly  unsupported  by  analogy. 

Notwithstanding  the  prohibition  of  Variolous  Inocula- 


474  VACCINATION. 


tion,  the  Board  had  repeatedly  to  deplore  its  continuance 
especially  in  Ireland.     Thus  we  read — 

1850.— The  Board  again  entreat  the  attention  of  the  Govern- 
ment to  the  fact  that  Inoculation  for  the  Smallpox  still  continues  ; 
and  that  the  disease  is  communicated  by  vagrants  to  those  unpro- 
tected by  Vaccination  in  town  and  country.  The  contagion  is 
carried  throughout  the  land  by  wandering  Irish,  and  no  care,  how- 
ever great,  can  be  successful  in  eradicating  Smallpox,  whilst  the 
neglect  of  Vaccination  and  the  practice  of  Variolous  Inoculation 
are  permitted  in  Ireland. 

It  was  Jenner's  practice  to  attribute  to  wilful  blind- 
ness and  innate  depravity  any  scepticism  as  to  the 
efficacy  of  vaccination ;  and  throughout  the  Reports  of 
the  Establishment  this  habit  of  imputation  was  main- 
tained. Vaccination  was  treated  as  a  sort  of  divine 
revelation,  plenary  and  manifest,  which  could  only  be 
disputed  or  resisted  from  deliberate  perversity,  or,  more 
charitably,  from  abject  dulness  or  ignorance ;  and  it 
would  be  easy  to  construct  a  catena  of  piquant  deliver- 
ances under  this  semi-theological  persuasion.  Such 
observations  as  the  following  were  of  the  order  of  matter- 
of-course — 

1850. — We  regret  to  learn  that  in  our  own  country  the  spread  of 
Vaccination  is  still  materially  impeded  by  influences  emanating 
from  ignorance  and  prejudice  in  the  lower  orders,  and  from  preju- 
dices in  many  who  cannot  plead  the  excuse  of  ignorance. 

1851 — It  is  lamentable  to  observe  not  only  the  indifference,  but 
the  active  hostility  displayed  by  the  community  to  Vaccination. 
Deeply-rooted  prejudices  and  absurd  superstitions  are  ever  opposing 
its  adoption. 

The  Reports  of  the  Establishment  year  after  year 
displayed  in  full  measure  the  familiar  complacency  of 
official  routine — where  pay  is  constant  and  wheels  pro- 
pelled from  office  desks  revolve  smoothly  in  space — so 
many  Londoners  vaccinated,  so  many  charges  of  virus 
distributed,,  and  confidence  in  the  sacred  prophylactic 
unabated.  A  revolution  was,  however,  impending.  The 
attitude  of  the  public  mind  toward  disease  had  become 
transformed.  Faith  in  sanitation  as  a  preventive  of 
fevers  had  been  created,  and  a  popular  demand  for  sani- 


THE  NATIONAL  VACCINE  ESTABLISHMENT.         475 

tary  improvement  had  set  in.  Under  cover  of  this  new 
enthusiasm  some  of  the  shrewder  advocates  of  vaccination 
conjectured  that  it  would  be  possible  to  effect  its  endow- 
ment and  establishment  on  a  scale  hitherto  unattempted 
in  England.  It  was  true  that  vaccination  had  no  relation 
to  sanitation ;  but  the  reforming  and  philanthropic  mob 
were  madly  in  favour  of  whatever  bore  the  promise  of 
health,  and  were  not  likely  to  show  themselves  hyper- 
critical or  obstructive. 

The  first  movement  toward  a  new  advance  is  discern- 
ible in  the  Report  of  the  Establishment  for  1850  wherein 
we  read — 

The  Board  have  had  to  solicit  the  attention  of  Her  Majesty's 
Government  on  several  occasions  to  the  deplorable  fact  that  a  very 
large  proportion  of  the  children  of  the  poorer  classes  in  the  Metro- 
polis, and  in  England  and  Wales  generally,  but  above  all  in  Ireland, 
remain  year  by  year  without  the  benefit  of  Vaccination.  Their 
testimony  on  this  important  part  of  the  sanitary  condition  of  the 
population  has  been  derived  from  the  reports  of  numerous  compe- 
tent medical  witnesses  in  all  parts  of  the  United  Kingdom,  and 
from  the  frequent  recurrence  of  rapid  and  fatal  invasions  of  Small- 
pox, to  which  their  attention  has  been  repeatedly  called  by  urgent 
applications  for  Vaccine  Lymph.  It  is  satisfactory  to  find  that  the 
representations  which  the  Board  have  made  are  most  unequivo- 
cally confirmed  by  the  report  of  Mr.  Grainger,  from  which  it  appears 
that  the  number  of  persons  under  one  year  who  were  vaccinated 
during  the  year  ended  29th  September,  1848,  in  627  Unions  of 
parishes  in  England  and  Wales  (exclusive  of  those  vaccinated  at 
the  cost  of  their  parents)  amounted  to  no  more  than  33  per  cent., 
compared  with  the  total  number  of  births  registered  in  the  same 
period. 

These  figures  are  worth  noting.  Dating  from  1840, 
an  effort  was  made  to  overtake  the  vaccination  of  the 
people  by  the  agency  of  the  poor  law ;  and  yet  so  late  as 
1848.  not  more  than  one- third  of  the  children  born  were 
accounted  for  as  Jennerised.  Adding  to  this  third  the 
offspring  of  the  upper  and  middle  classes,  we  may  safely 
conclude  that  up  to  1850  not  half  the  inhabitants  of 
England  and  Wales  were  vaccinated  ;  and  the  unvaccin- 
ated  half  included  the  lower  classes  most  subject  to 
smallpox — victims  of  that  "distress  with  which  con- 
tagious diseases  are  so  invariably  associated,"  to  cite  the 


476  VACCINATION. 


words  of  the  Report  for  1847.  The  point  is  especially 
worth  noting  because  the  decline  of  smallpox,  which  set 
in  last  century,  is  continually  ascribed  to  vaccination. 
A  true  cause  however  must  be  commensurate  with  the 
effect ;  and  yet  here  we  see  the  asserted  cause  of  the  fall 
in  smallpox  did  not  apply  in  1848  to  half  the  English 
people ;  in  which  half,  moreover,  lay  nine-tenths  of  the 
iield  in  which  smallpox  was  possible.  The  Report  for 
1850  continues — 

The  Board  lament  that  they  have  no  means  of  adopting  or  en- 
forcing such  measures  as  are  obviously  necessary  for  the  prevention 
of  Smallpox.  They  have  no  power  of  instituting  domiciliary 
visits,  or  house  to  house  visitation  ;  and  indeed  hitherto  such  have 
Tbeen  deemed  too  much  of  an  encroachment  on  the  liberty  of  the 
subject.  They  have  no  power  to  punish  officially  the  practice  of 
illegal  Inoculation,  or  the  exposure  of  infected  persons  ;  and  they 
have  only  had  the  means  granted  to  them  of  prosecuting  such 
offenders  in  two  cases,  in  order  to  establish  the  fact  of  the  illegality 
of  Variolous  Inoculation.  They  can  only  recommend  and  aid,  but 
they  cannot  enforce  Vaccination. 

The  progress  of  Vaccination  is  more  rapid  in  Foreign  Countries 
^vhere  municipal  measures  or  legislative  enactments  are  adopted  to 
promote  its  dissemination ;  and  they  beg  to  express  their  conviction 
that  if  England  is  to  be  free  from  Smallpox,  the  interposition  of  the 
Legislature  alone,  by  wise  and  comprehensive  measures,  can  dis- 
arm the  Pestilence  of  its  terrors,  and  realise  the  fond  hopes  and 
prayers  of  the  Friends  of  Humanity  for  its  extinction. 

In  these  observations  is  revealed  the  movement  of  a 
new  spirit — of  a  revived  resolution  to  obtain  for  vacci- 
nation the  force  of  law.  Similar  projects  had  from  time 
to  time  been  advanced  by  enthusiasts,  and  swept  aside  by 
statesmen.  Canning,  for  instance,  had  declared  that  he 
could  not  imagine  any  circumstances  whatever  that 
would  induce  him  to  consent  to  the  compulsory  infliction 
of  vaccination ;  and,  at  a  later  date,  Sir  Robert  Peel  ex- 
pressed himself  to  like  effect,  saying,  "  To  make  vaccina- 
tion compulsory,  as  in  some  despotic  countries,  would  be 
so  opposite  to  the  mental  habits  of  the  British  people, 
and  the  freedom  of  opinion  wherein  they  rightly  glory, 
that  I  never  could  be  a  party  to  such  compulsion."*  But 

*  Report  of  Royal  Jennerian  and  London  Vaccine  Institution,  1853. 


VACCINATION  ENFORCED— 1853.  477 

Peel  died  in  1850,  and  a  strong  public  opinion  in  favour 
of  sanitary  reform  had  come  into  existence  without 
much  scruple  as  to  methods.  Diseases,  hitherto  regarded 
as  supernatural  inflictions,  were  traced  to  conditions 
of  life,  remediable  or  avertible ;  so  that  the  submission 
and  terror  which  sickness  formerly  inspired  gave  place 
to  widely  different  sentiments — a  temper  of  intolerance 
with  illness,  and  a  determination  to  extirpate  its  infectious 
forms  with  those  who  in  ignorance  or  wilfulness  should 
persist  in  their  generation  and  diffusion. 


CHAPTER  XXXVII. 

VACCINATION  ENFORCED — 1853. 

VACCINATION,  it  will  be  objected,  had  no  connection  with 
sanitary  reform.  True  :  it  had  none  ;  but  the  dull  public 
when  possessed  with  a  new  enthusiasm  is  not  apt  to  dis- 
criminate ;  and  those  who  had  an  interest  in  pushing 
vaccination  found  their  operations  facilitated  by  the  rising 
faith  in  the  preventibility  of  disease ;  their  promise  of 
saving  the  country  from  smallpox  seeming  of  a  piece 
with  much  else  that  had  become  credible. 

Yet,  strange  to  say,  the  credit  of  vaccination  had  never 
fallen  lower  than  prior  to  its  enforcement.  The  proof  is 
written  at  large  in  the  reports  of  the  National  Vaccine 
Establishment  from  1831  to  1850,  which  it  is  difficult  to 
peruse  without  perceiving  them  to  be  the  testimonies  of 
half-hearted  officials  to  a  generation  grown  sceptical  and 
indifferent.  The  medical  literature  of  the  time  reflects 
the  same  uncertainty  and  doubt.  Vaccination  was  ad- 
mitted to  be  no  sure  defence  against  smallpox :  it  might, 
it  probably  did,  mitigate  the  disease  when  it  occurred;  and, 
in  the  absence  of  anything  better,  its  practice  was  advis- 
able ;  but  on  such  terms,  what  scope  was  there  for  its 
advocacy  !  In  the  writings  of  Dr.  George  Gregory,  this 
scepticism  is  so  pronounced,  that  he  scarcely  hesitates  to 


478  VACCINATION. 


recommend  a  reversion  to  inoculation  with  smallpox.  A 
like  scepticism  as  to  the  virtue  of  vaccination  with  a  like 
disposition  to  return  to  variolous  inoculation,  is  exhibited 
by  Dr.  Copland  in  his  Dictionary  of  Practical  Medicine, 
1844-58 — a  work  of  high  repute,  and  the  standard  of 
medical  opinion  for  the  time.  In  short,  vaccination  was 
subject  to  general  distrust ;  every  claim  made  for  it  had 
been  belied ;  and  except  for  its  endowment  by  the  State, 
and  the  determination  of  sundry  adventurers  to  have  that 
endowment  enlarged,  the  practice  would  gradually  have 
fallen  into  disuse. 

The  same  absence  of  confidence  in  vaccination  was 
conspicuous  in  the.  school  of  sanitary  reformers.  It  was 
of  the  essence  oT:  their  revelation  that  smallpox  was  as 
preventible  as  other  fevers,  and  by  the  same  methods.  I 
might,  indeed,  challenge  any  one  to  produce  aught  from 
the  utterances  of  the  early  apostles  of  sanitation  in 
deliberate  or  explicit  praise  of  vaccination.  The  pre- 
scription might  not  be  formally  condemned;  it  might 
even  be  cursorily  approved;  but  it  was  foreign  to  the 
tenor  of  their  doctrine,  and  its  recommendation  must 
have  died  in  their  throats.  Dr.  Southwood  Smith 
delivered  two  lectures  in  Edinburgh  in  1855  on  the 
Prevention  of  Epidemics,  but  of  smallpox  as  preventible 
by  vaccination  he  said  not  a  word.  On  the  contrary, 
this  was  his  testimony,  his  all  inclusive  testimony — 

Overcrowding  we  can  prevent;  the  accumulation  of  filth  in 
towns  and  houses  we  can  prevent ;  the  supply  of  light,  air,  and 
water,  together  with  the  several  other  appliances  included  in  the 
all- comprehensive  word  CLEANLINESS,  we  can  secure.  To  the 
extent  to  which  it  is  in  our  power  to  do  this,  it  is  in  our  power  to 
prevent  epidemics. 

The  human  family  have  now  lived  in  communities  more  than 
six  thousand  years,  yet  they  have  not  learnt  to  make  their  habita- 
tions clean.  At  last  we  are  beginning  to  learn  the  lesson.  When 
we  shall  have  mastered  it,  we  shall  have  conquered  epidemics. 

Among  the  upper  and  middle  classes  distrust  in  vacci- 
nation was  general.  How,  indeed,  could  it  be  otherwise  ? 
All  were  vaccinated,  yet  whenever  smallpox  was  epi- 
demic, recipients  of  the  rite  enjoyed  no  immunity.  In 


VACCINATION  ENFORCED— 1853.  479 

one  of  Miss  Mitford's  letters  we  find  an  experience  and  a 
judgment  which  were  far  from  uncommon.  Writing,  1st 
February,  1850,  she  observed — 

About  two  months  ago,  my  man,  a  very  steady  and  respectable 
servant,  was  seized  with  Smallpox  after  Vaccination.  He  was 
very,  very  ill,  delirious  nearly  a  fortnight,  and  not  a  nurse  could  be 
had  for  love  or  money.  I  have  lost  all  faith  in  Vaccination,  either 
as  preventing  or  mitigating  Smallpox.  I  know  of  thirty  severe 
cases  this  winter,  five  of  them  fatal,  in  my  own  immediate  neigh- 
bourhood, and  in  Reading  it  has  been  a  pestilence.* 

Vaccination  among  the  poor  was  (as  it  is)  detested. 
Coaxed  or  forced  into  its  reception  without  consideration 
or  preparation,  like  sheep  or  cattle,  they  realised  its 
mischiefs  and  misery  in  full  measure;  and  naturally, 
whenever  pressure  was  relaxed,  avoided  its  acquaintance. 

How  then  did  vaccination  come  to  be  imposed  upon  a 
community  thus  affected  ?  The  answer  is  the  usual  one, 
illustrated  continually  in  English  politics :  an  organised 
interest,  possessed  with  a  definite  intention,  can  always 
prevail  over  the  public — careless,  uninstructed,  and  with- 
out positive  conviction.  Under  such  circumstances,  it  is 
a  mere  question  of  management  what  may  be  achieved  in 
Parliament  at  variance  with  the  common  welfare.  Those 
there  get,  who  know  how  to  take. 

All  trades  and  professions  fulfil  the  law  of  their  being 
in  striving  after  advantage  and  extension.  The  clergy 
and  the  clerically-minded  laity  are  persuaded  that  to 
multiply  churches  and  provide  stipends,  is  to  prepare  for 
the  millennium,  and  nothing  save  hopelessness  prevents 
demands  upon  the  national  exchequer  for  the  purpose. 
The  sacrifices  the  army  and  navy  would  exact  on  their 
own  behalf  for  security  from  foreign  aggression  are  only 
limited  by  the  public  incredulity.  The  commercial  classes 
are  free-traders  in  principle ;  but  if  a  protective  bounty 
could  be  had  for  any  manufacture,  it  would  be  instantly 
grasped  at  by  those  concerned,  and  most  ingenious  reasons 
invented  to  justify  that  particular  departure  from  the 
rule  of  justice.  This  tendency  of  interests  to  aggrandise 

*  Memoirs.    By  C.  Boner.     Vol.  i.  p.  176. 


480  VACCINATION. 


themselves,  per  fas  et  nefas,  at  the  public  expense,  is 
recognised  by  all  statesmen,  and  is  only  kept  in  check  by 
perpetual  vigilance. 

What  is  true  of  all,  is  true  of  the  medical  profession, 
crowded  with  competitors  eager  for  employment.  Vac- 
cination as  a  branch  of  business,  capable  of  development 
and  endowment  at  the  public  cost,  was  certain  of  vigor- 
ous promotion  whenever  there  was  opportunity ;  but  not 
until  1853  did  the  way  open  for  the  compulsory  infliction 
of  the  Jennerian  rite.  The  undertaking  was  hazardous. 
The  opposition  to  which  Canning  and  Peel  had  given 
expression,  had  to  be  circumspectly  encountered.  It  was 
a  job  that  might  easily  be  wrecked ;  and  therefore  it  was 
considered  inexpedient  that  the  medical  corporations 
should  appear  too  openly  in  the  transaction.  Instead,  a 
committee  was  formed  in  1850  under  the  title  of  "  The 
Epidemiological  Society  for  the  Investigation  of  Epidemic 
Diseases,"  with  a  number  of  suitable  decoys,  and  osten- 
sible occupation ;  but  chiefly  designed  as  an  instrument 
wherewith  to  operate  on  Parliament  for  the  better  estab- 
lishment and  more  liberal  endowment  of  vaccination. 

It  was  resolved  to  proceed  tentatively — to  secure  if 
possible  the  affirmation  of  compulsion,  allowing  the  shock 
of  innovation  to  subside  before  going  on  to  provide  the 
effective  means  of  espionage  and  persecution.  As  it 
turned  out,  the  caution  exercised  was  superfluous.  Much 
more  might  have  been  demanded  and  conceded  of  the 
ignorance  and  indifference  of  the  legislature.  Lord 
Lyttelton  was  selected  to  introduce  what  was  called  the 
Vaccination  Extension  Bill,  and  in  moving  the  second 
reading  in  the  House  of  Lords  on  12th  April,  he  ingenu- 
ously disowned  any  qualification  for  the  task,  saying — 

I  have  no  scientific  knowledge  of  the  subject  myself,  and  for  my 
information  I  am  indebted  to  some  able  and  learned  persons 
belonging  to  the  Epidemiological  Society — 

Adding  in  proof  of  the  manner  in  which  he  had  been 
crammed  by  the  said  "able  and  learned  persons" — 

It  is  unnecessary  for  me  to  speak  of  the  certainty  of  Vaccination 
as  a  preventive  of  Smallpox,  that  being  a  point  on  which  the  whole 
'medical  profession  have  arrived  at  complete  unanimity  I 


VACCINATION  ENFORCED— 1853.  481 

The  statistics  with  which  Lord  Lyttelton  supported 
the  necessity  for  compulsion  are  interesting  as  indicating 
the  extent  and  irregularity  of  vaccination  among  the 
English  people.  He  said — 

"We  are  told  that  the  number  of  births  registered  in  England  and 
Wales  in  the  year  ending  29th  September,  1852,  was  601,839,  and 
the  number  vaccinated  under  the  Act  of  1840  was  897,128;  so 
that,  in  round  numbers,  400,000  were  vaccinated  by  the  machinery 
in  force,  leaving  only  200,000,  or  one-third  of  the  whole  number, 
to  be  treated  by  private  vaccination.  There  are  several  fallacies  in 
that  statement.  The  general  result  is  by  no  means  the  con- 
sequence of  anything  like  a  uniform  system  throughout  the  country. 
I  have  before  me  a  detailed  statement  of  the  extent  of  Vaccination 
in  various  parts  of  England  in  1851,  which  shows  there  is  great 
want  of  uniformity  in  certain  districts.  In  towns  where  people 
have  a  shorter  distance  to  go  to  get  their  children  vaccinated,  the 
result  is  more  favourable  than  in  the  rural  districts.  For  example, 
in  Birmingham,  on  the  total  number  of  births  in  1851,  the  vacci- 
nations were  91  per  cent. ;  in  Leicester  they  were  only  41  per  cent. ; 
and  in  Loughborough  only  18  per  cent.  The  contrast  between  the 
manufacturing  and  the  rural  districts  is  favourable  on  the  side  of 
the  former.  In  Bideford,  the  vaccinations  were  only  11  per  cent, 
upon  the  births ;  in  West  Ashford  in  Kent,  they  were  only  22  per 
cent.;  and  in  Winchcomb  only  6  per  cent.  While  the  general 
average  is  lower  in  the  agricultural  than  in  the  manufacturing 
districts,  some  contrary  instances  are  found.  Thus  in  Derby  the 
vaccinations  are  only  42  per  cent. ;  while  at  Watford,  which  is  a 
rural  district,  the  vaccinations  were  126  per  cent,  upon  the  births  in 
1851 — which  included,  of  course,  the  vaccination  of  children  born 
in  previous  years.  But  in  London,  and  in  no  less  a  parish  than 
that  of  St.  James,  Westminster,  it  is  reported  that  in  1851  on  973 
births  only  44  vaccinations  took  place ;  while  in  Wellingborough 
Union,  where  there  were  800  births  in  1851,  110  vaccination  at  all 
is  reported ! 

Strange  to  say,  Lord  Lyttelton  made  no  attempt  to 
complete  his  argument.  He  ought  to  have  shown  that 
in  the  places  where  vaccination  was  least  practised  there 
was  most  smallpox,  and  where  most  practised  there  was 
least  smallpox.  Had  he  made  the  attempt,  his  eyes 
might  have  been  opened  to  the  untrustworthy  character 
of  "  the  able  and  learned  persons  "  by  whom  he  had  been 
mendaciously  primed. 

Lord  Shaftesbury,  in  supporting  the  measure,  adduced 
similar  instances  of  neglected  vaccination  as  follows — 
31 


482  VACCINATION. 


Births  1851.  Vaccinations. 

Paddington 1458  ...  386 

Hampstead 286  ...  93 

Huntingdon 805  ...  68 

St.  Neots        671  ...  17 

Carnarvon       929  ...  125 

Bangor  and  Beaumaris        ...         ...  1025  ...  420 

Newton  Abbott          1563  ...  150 

He,  too,  forgot  to  show  that  these  places  were  "  decim- 
ated" (that's  the  word)  with  smallpox,  whilst  other 
places  where  vaccination  was  generally  practised  enjoyed 
exemption.  On  the  contrary,  with  curious  inconsequence, 
he  went  on  to  recommend  a  sure  prescription  of  his  own, 
namely,  improved  dwellings  for  the  poor.  These  were 
his  words — 

It  is  perfectly  true  that  Smallpox  is  chiefly  con  fined  to  the  lowest 
classes  of  the  population ;  and  I  believe  that  with  improved  lodging  - 
Jiouses,  the  disease  might  be  all  but  exterminated. 

Not  a  doubt  of  it;  but  if  improved  lodging-houses 
would  "all  but  exterminate  smallpox,"  why  resort  to 
such  a  superfluity  as  vaccination  ? 

There  was  no  adverse  discussion — indeed,  no  discussion 
whatever.  Lord  Ellenborough  observed  of  the  Epidemi- 
ological  Society,  under  whose  direction  they  were 
legislating,  that  he  "  would  not  adventure  upon  the 
extraordinary  name  by  which  the  members  are  desig- 
nated." The  bill  was  read  for  the  third  time,  nem.  diss., 
on  18th  April,  and  was  introduced  to  the  House  of  Com- 
mons on  5th  May,  where  its  course  was  as  uninterrupted 
as  in  the  Lords.  Sir  John  Pakington,  in  moving  the 
second  reading  on  20th  July,  pleaded  like  Lord  Lyttelton 
his  own  ignorance,  and  the  evidence  and  authority  of  the 
Society  with  "  the  extraordinary  name,"  thus  stating  the 
case — 

An  Act  was  passed  in  1840,  by  which  Boards  of  Guardians  were 
authorised  to  defray  the  expenses  of  Vaccination  in  their  respective 
unions.  The  Poor  Law  Board  have  done  all  in  their  power  to  carry 
out  the  provisions  of  the  Act ;  but  still  the  grave  fact  remains,  that 
the  system  is  voluntary :  that  in  many  places  the  people  are  pre- 
judiced ;  that  a  large  proportion  of  the  population  is  not  vaccinated  ; 
and  that  mortality  from  Smallpox  exists  to  a  very  great  extent. 


VACCINATION  ENFORCED— 1853.  483 

In  the  year  ending  March,  1843  out  of  527,325  born  in  England 
and  Wales,  only  183,000  or  34  per  cent,  were  vaccinated.  In  the 
succeeding  years  the  vaccinated  stood  to  the  unvaccinated  in  the 
following  ratio : — 

1844-45,     ...     100  to  156      |      1845-46,     ...     100  to  134 

In  1846-47  the  births  were  552,000  of  which  only  267,000  were 
vaccinated,  or  about  50  per  cent,  of  the  whole.  In  consequence, 
however,  of  stimulus  applied  by  the  Poor  Law  Board,  two-thirds 
of  the  births  in  1847-48  were  accounted  for  as  vaccinated ;  but  still 
in  many  parts  there  prevails  excessive  neglect.  For  example,  so 
late  as  1851  in  32  unions  in  and  around  Birmingham,  the  births 
were  17,700  while  the  vaccinations  were  only  6,174 — two-thirds 
being  unvaccinated. 

Here,  too,  we  note  the  omission  of  proof,  that  where 
vaccination  was  neglected  smallpox  was  prevalent,  and 
where  practised  smallpox  was  absent.  Lord  Palmerston 
supported  the  second  reading  without  hesitation.  Sir 
George  Strickland  was  the  only  dissentient,  saying — 

Sir  John  Pakington  has  himself  supplied  the  strongest  reason 
why  the  bill  should  not  pass.  He  has  shown  that  Vaccination  as 
at  present  conducted  is  working  well ;  but  because  some  mothers 
object  to  the  practice,  we  are  to  be  saddled  with  a  compulsory  law. 
"We  are  too  prone  to  resort  to  force  to  overcome  resistance,  which 
would  yield  to  reason  with  the  exercise  of  patience.  What  need 
is  there  that  we  should  imitate  the  legislation  of  Saxony,  or  Austria, 
or  Prussia  in  such  a  matter  ?  In  this  country  we  cannot  have  one 
law  for  the  poor  and  another  for  the  rich,  and  yet  here  we  are  asked 
to  apply  a  measure  to  the  former  which  we  could  not  think  of  for 
the  latter.  How  can  we  expect  to  abate  prejudice  against  Vaccina- 
tion by  compulsion  ?  If  we  acted  more  on  the  old  English  principle 
of  leaving  people  to  secure  their  welfare  by  their  own  good  sense, 
we  should  in  the  end  achieve  our  purpose  much  more  successfully. 

The  bill  was  read  for  the  third  time  in  the  House  of 
Commons  without  debate  on  the  13th,  and  received  the 
royal  assent  on  20th  August,  1853.  In  short,  it  passed 
through  Parliament  without  opposition.  What,  it  will 
be  asked,  were  its  provisions  ? 

By  the  Act  (16  and  17  Viet.  cap.  100)  it  was  required — 

1.  That  every  child,  whose  health  permits,  shall  be  vaccinated 
within  three,  or  in  case  of  orphanage  within  four  months  of  birth, 
by  the  public  vaccinator  of  the  district,  or  by  some  other  medica 
practitioner. 


Y.UVINATIOV 


2.  That  notice  of  this  requirement,  and  information  as  to  the 
nents  for  public  vaccination,  shall,  whenever  a  birth 
be  jjiven  by  tho  registrar  of  births  to  tho  parents  or 
liaus  of  the'child. 

o.  That  every  medical  practitioner  who,  whether  in  public  or 

•-.iccessfully  vaccinates  a  child  shall  send  to  the 

.'.  registrar  of  births  a  certificate  that  ho  has  done  so:  and  the 

-trar  shall  keep  a  minute  of  all  the  notices  pvon.  and  an  account 

of  all  the  certificates  thus  received. 

4.  That  parents  or  guardians  who,  without  sufficient  reason,  after 
•n£  duly  received  the  registrar's  notice  of  the  requirement  of 
Vaccination,  either  omit  to  have  a  child  duly  vaccinated,  or,  this 
being  done,  omit  to  h&V«  it  inspected  as  to  the  results  of  Vaccination, 
shall  be  liable  to  a  penalty  oi'  i;l  ;  and  all  penalties  shall  bo  re- 
coverable under  .lervis's  Act.  and  shall  be  paid  toward  the  local 
poor-rate. 

Thus  from  lS">o  every  English  parent  became  liable 
to  a  lino  of  twenty  shillings  and  costs  who  refused  or 
neglected  to  have  his  child  vaccinated  within  three 
months  of  birth.  It  may  seem  surprising  that  an  Act  so 
arbitrary,  enforcing  an  indefinite  medical  prescription 
(for  Vaccination  was  ;<ot  defined,  and  Vaccination  /s  a 
rite  of  several  varieties"!  should  have  been  passed  so 
lightly ;  but  we  have  to  recollect  the  circumstances. 
The  House  of  Commons  in  those  days  was  the  house  of 
the  upper  and  middle  classes,  and  was  as  little  atU\ 
as  the  House  of  Lords  itself  by  the  proposed  legislation. 
It  was  an  Act  for  application  to  the  vulgar — to  the  pre- 
judiced, whose  prejudices  were  to  be  encountered,  not 
with  arguments,  but  with  tines;  an  illustration  of  the 
levity  with  which  the  unconcerned  can  dispose  of  the 
opinions  and  feelings  of  those  to  whom  they  owe  no 
allegiance.  Since  that  time  the  working -classes  have 
plainly  discovered  that  they  only  obtain  consideration 
in  Parliament  in  so  far  as  they  can  make  their  power 
felt  in  the  constitution  of  Parliament.  No  rights  are 
secure  that  cannot  be  enforced,  nor  any  just  ice  certain 
that  cannot  be  vindicated.  Those  who  hold  their 
ground  by  any  other  tenure  than  their  own  intelli- 
gence and  vigour  are  liable  to  continual  imposition  anil 
depredation. 


V  A  '  >  N   1  OiVFORCED—l  <  4  fr/i 


The-,  ^oorl  olrl  rule,  11  if;  Dimple  plan, 

Tlisit  t.lif:;/  f.houM  \M\'.I:  who  liave  the  power, 
A  i.  v/ho  can  — 

i  :.  the  ahidinir  social  lav/,  however  veiled  or  elevated  jn 
application. 

A^ain  we  have  to  recollect,  that  in  I8."»:{  there  was  no 
developed  or  scientific  resittance  to  vaccination.  As  to  the 
nature  and  value  of  the  practice  there  was  wide  div 
of  opinion,  notwithstanding  Lord  Lyttel  ton's  affirmation 
of  the  complete  unanimity  of  tlie  medical  pn,f<  [Jon  ;  hut 
although  .Mich  BCeptici«lX1  \va.,  ^en'-.ral,  the  rite  constituted 
an  <•  -.tahli  .h'-d  poll-tax  arnon^  the  respectable  c! 
which  sort  of  thin'/  i  oevei  readily  surrendered.  Hence 
Died  less  unreasonable  to  enforce  the  like  observ- 
ance on  "the  ignorant  and  j^rejudieed  "  at  the  cost  of  the 
poor-rate.  When  Cannin  d  to  consent  to  com- 

pulsion in  1808,  cowpox  had  a  competitor  in  smallpox 
inoculation;  arid  I'ecl  in  his  later  protest  expressed  the 
preference  of  an  expiring  veneration  for  living  English 
liberty  over  cut-arid  -dry  ience.  Despotic  phil- 

anthropy was  coming  into  vo^ue,  and  it  was  no  longer 
thought  Impracticable  or  inexpedient  to  do  good  to 
people  in  spite  of  themselves.  There  was  therefore 
little  to  be  said  against  the  Act  of  1853  beyond  what 
Sir  Oeor;_e  Strickland  expressed.  The  ri^ht  of  the  pre- 
judiced and  ignorant  to  the  enjoyment  of  their  prejudice 
find  ignorance  had  become  obsolete  and  indefeasible. 

The  report  of  the  Epidemiologies!  Society  was  taken 
a  tie  v.arrant  for  the  Act  of  1853  alike  by  the  Lords 
and  Commons.  Turning  to  that  report,*  it  is  difficult  in 
a  few  words  to  convey  an  adequate  idea  of  its  untruthful 
character.  Whoever,  it  is  said,  wills  the  end  wills  the 
means;  and  certain  medical  men  having  resolved  to 
make  vaccination  compulsory  whatever  was  requisite 

"'rfrom  Dr.  A''///y/./v/  Seaton  to  Visccwnt  Palm<  , 
.  H'in.nl'i,fi:i;  «.i»L  Vaccination  in.  Ki>tjl'i.nd  and  Wait*  and  o&6   ' 

''  ' 


.       .  .  . 

and  on  Gompvlton  [''//v;/////r/'ort)  -,/;•/:<//,  7V/,//A,/  «-/,////  A/>[><-n'i'> 

t<,  M,."  Erpidemfofancal  .SVx:/'^y.      ()r<}wA   \>y  tho  Houv;  of  Commons  to 
be  printed,  3rd  May,  1853. 


48G  VACCINATION. 


had  to  be  accomplished ;  and  Dr.  Seaton  undertook  the 
operation,  the  Epidemiological  Society,  of  which  he  was 
"  the  ruling  spirit,*  playing  the  part  of  guarantee.  For 
the  persuasion  of  the  Lords  and  Commons,  an  advocacy 
of  vaccination  without  hesitation  or  qualification  was 
deemed  advisable,  and  the  line  was  thus  followed  up — 

Smallpox  is  a  disease  to  which  every  person  is  liable  who  is  not 
protected  by  a  previous  attack  or  by  Vaccination.  In  its  unmodi- 
fied form  it  is  fatal  to  about  one  in  four  or  one  in  five  of  all  whom 
it  invades ;  and,  when  it  does  not  destroy  life,  it  in  many  cases  dis- 
figures and  deteriorates  the  general  health.  Every  case  of  it  is  a 
centre  of  contagion,  and  every  unvaccinated  or  imperfectly  vac- 
cinated population  is  a  nidus  for  the  disease  to  settle  in  and  propa- 
gate itself.  It  is  on  the  two  latter  propositions,  which  do  not  admit 
of  being  controverted,  that  we  conceive  any  enactment  for  render- 
ing Vaccination  compulsory  must  be  based.  If  it  admit  of  doubt 
how  far  it  is  justifiable  in  this  free  country  to  compel  a  person  to 
take  care  of  his  own  life  and  that  of  his  offspring,  it  can  scarcely 
be  disputed  that  no  one  has  a  right  to  put  in  jeopardy  the  lives  of 
his  fellow-subjects. 

All  will  recognise  the  authoritative  air  of  the  fore- 
going, so  impressive  where  nothing  better  is  known ; 
but  the  indisputable  proposition,  "  that  no  one  has  a 
right  to  put  in  jeopardy  the  lives  of  his  fellow-subjects," 
was  curiously  inconsistent  with  faith  in  the  asserted 
prophylactic ;  for  if  the  vaccinated  were  secure  from 
smallpox,  how  could  the  unvaccinated  place  their  lives 
in  jeopardy?  The  style  assumed  was  thus  maintained — 

We  are  ourselves  satisfied,  and  it  is  the  concurrent  and  unani- 
mous testimony  of  nearly  2,000  medical  men  with  whom  we  have 
been  in  correspondence,  that  Vaccination  is  a  perfectly  safe  and 
efficient  prophylactic  against  this  disease. 

This  proposition  we  hold  to  be  proved — 

1.  By  the  general  immunity  with  which  it  is  found  that  those 
who  have  been  vaccinated  can  mingle  with  Smallpox  patients,  a 
fact  so  familiar  that  we  do  not  feel  that  we  need  adduce  any  illus- 
tration of  it. 

2.  By  the  gradual  decrease  which  has  taken  place  in  the  mortal- 
ity from  Smallpox,  as  compared  with  the  mortality  from  all  causes, 
since  Vaccination  has  been  introduced  and  been  generally  received. 


t  British  Medical  Journal,  3rd  July,  1880. 


VACCINATION  ENFORCED— 1853.  487 

As  to  the  immunity  of  the  vaccinated,  it  was  dis- 
proved in  every  smallpox  epidemic,  and  in  every  small- 
pox hospital,  and  by  the  precautions  and  terrors  of 
those  accounted  secure.  To  sustain  the  proposition  that 
smallpox  had  decreased  in  consequence  of  the  introduc- 
tion of  vaccination,  a  variety  of  statistical  tables  were 
adduced,  English  and  Continental;  but  had  the  Lords  or 
Commons  subjected  them  to  scrutiny  they  would  have 
discovered  that  the  details  were  either  irrelevant  or 
adverse  to  the  conclusion  asserted.  Many  of  the  statis- 
tics, especially  of  last  century,  were  not  certainties,  bub 
conjectures  and  estimates,  vitiated,  too,  with  the  bias  of 
their  compilers.  When  it  is  said  that  smallpox  decreased 
in  consequence  of  the  introduction  of  vaccination,  the 
answer  is  that  smallpox  was  decreasing  prior  to  its 
introduction  in  almost  every  country  of  Europe ;  and 
that  the  decrease  continued  irrespective  of  its  influence, 
save  in  so  far  as  it  might  have  discouraged  the  culture 
of  smallpox  by  inoculation.  To  illustrate  this  contention 
it  may  suffice  to  take  the  table  of  London  Smallpox  set 
forth  by  Dr.  Seaton,  in  which  the  average  of  deaths  from 
Smallpox  in  every  1000  deaths  from  all  causes  was 
contrasted  in  decennial  periods  for  fifty  years,  prior  and 
subsequent  to  the  introduction  of  vaccination. 

PRIOR  TO  VACCINATION.        j   SUBSEQUENT  TO  VACCINATION. 

Deaths  from  Deaths  from 

Ten  Years  ending —          Smallpox.  Ten  Years  ending —          Smallpox 

1760  100  1810  64 


1770  ...  108 

1780  ...  98 

1790  ...  87 

1800  88 


1820  ...  42 

1830  ...  32 

1840  ...  23 

1850  16 


The  figures  are  far  from  trustworthy,  but  taking  them 
as  they  stand,  and  admitting  the  decline,  where  was  the 
proof  that  it  was  due  to  vaccination  ?  The  introduction 
of  that  practice  was  one  thing :  its  application  quite 
another.  There  was  no  reason  to  believe  that  more 
Londoners  were  vaccinated  in  1820  than  in  1810,  or  in 
1840  than  in  1830 ;  indeed,  the  available  evidence  went 
to  the  contrary,  vaccination  having  fallen  in  repute  after 


48  b  VACCINATION. 

the  furore  of  1801-5,  and  the  demonstration  of  its  im- 
potence and  its  injuriousness.  Probably  not  ten  per 
cent,  of  the  births  in  London  up  to  1840  were  accounted 
for  as  vaccinated ;  and  notwithstanding  the  provision  of 
vaccination  at  the  cost  of  the  poor-rate  by  the  Act  of 
1840,  not  fifty  per  cent,  in  1850.  Yet  to  a  cause  so 
utterly  inadequate,  the  steady  decline  in  London  Small- 
pox was  ascribed !  The  same  fallacy  pervaded  the 
statistics  of  other  countries  and  cities,  yet  so  strong  was 
the  prepossession  in  favour  of  the  conclusion  determined 
upon,  that  it  was  apparently  neither  seen  nor  suspected, 
obvious  though  it  was. 

Nor  was  it  surprising  that  with  a  disposition  so  fixed 
and  obtuse,  no  enlarged  or  philosophic  views  should  have 
been  entertained.  "  Smallpox,"  said  Dr.  Seaton,  "  had 
decreased  compared  with  mortality  from  other  causes." 
True ;  but  what  if  mortality  from  other  causes  had  com- 
pensated for  the  decrease  of  smallpox  ?  and  if  such  com- 
pensation had  taken  place,  as,  for  example,  in  Glasgow, 
in  what  consisted  the  advantage  ?  Again,  no  reference 
was  made  to  illness  and  death  resulting  from  vaccination, 
as  if  the  rite  were  harmless  as  baptism.  Allowing  that 
the  practice  did  in  some  occult  fashion  tend  to  the 
abatement  of  smallpox,  it  was  still  open  to  question 
whether  the  infliction  of  an  acute  specific  disease  on  all 
sorts  and  conditions  of  infancy  was  not  likely  to  be  far 
more  injurious  to  life  than  the  smallpox  it  was  supposed 
to  avert.  Such  considerations,  however,  were  foreign  to 
Dr.  Seaton  and  his  Epidemiological  Society  with  whom 
vaccination  stood  for  little  else  than  an  extension  of 
medical  business  at  the  public  cost. 

It  is  not  to  be  forgotten  that  the  Act  of  1853  brought 
to  fruition  what  was  long  hankered  after  by  the  trade 
spirit  of  the  medical  profession.  The  Act  of  1840  en- 
dowed vaccination  out  of  the  poor-rate;  but  to  make 
the  rite  compulsory  and  to  ensure  good  pay  for  its  per- 
formance was  the  consummation  desired.  The  terms 
and  conditions  that  ensued  on  the  Act  of  1840  are  thus 
described  by  Dr.  Seaton — 


VACCINATION  ENFORCED— 1853.  489 

The  lee  paid  in  England  and  Wales  varies  from  Is.  to  2s.  6d., 
never  falling  below  or  rising  above  those  sums.  In  1842  and  1843, 
the  Commissioners  estimated  the  average  fee  at  Is.  9d.  From  our 
inquiries,  it  appears  that  in  the  large  manufacturing  towns  the  fee 
varies  from  Is.  to  Is.  6d. ;  the  larger  sums  of  2s.  and  2s.  6d.  being 
paid  for  the  most  part  in  country  towns.  In  London,  the  more 
ordinary  fee  is  Is.  6d. ;  in  several  parishes  2s.  6d.  is  paid ;  and  in 
one,  Is.  In  some  few  unions  a  bad  principle  obtains  of  paying  a 
larger  sum  for  a  certain  number  of  cases,  as  50,  and  a  smaller  sum 
for  all  above.  The  average  payment  per  case  for' the  whole  of 
England  and  Wales  from  1841  to  1851  inclusive,  was  Is.  5|d. 

In  Ireland,  the  payment  appears  to  be  very  low.  The  more 
general  sum  is  Is.,  often  6d. ;  in  three  or  four  instances,  3d.  and 
4d.  The  vicious  principle  just  noticed,  of  paying  a  higher  fee  for  a 
limited  number  of  cases,  seems  to  be  almost  universal.  Thus, 
where  Is.  is  the  fee,  this  is  paid  for  the  first  200  cases,  and  6d.  for 
all  above.  In  one  case,  Nenagh,  Is.  is  paid  up  to  200,  and  Id.  for 
all  above.  In  other  cases,  3d.  and  4d.  are  paid  for  all  above  a 
certain  number.  Whilst  this  pitiful  remuneration  exists,  it  is  not 
surprising  to  find  that  in  many  districts  the  medical  practitioners 
decline  the  appointment,  leaving  the  people  unvaccinated. 

According  to  the  information  we  have  received,  it  is  found,  as 
might  be  anticipated,  that  on  the  whole  Vaccination  is  more 
efficiently  carried  out  in  the  districts  where  the  higher  fee  of  2s.  6d. 
is  paid  ;  or  where,  as  in  large  towns,  the  number  and  proximity  of 
children  compensate  the  vaccinator  in  some  degree  for  lower 
payment. 

The  better  pay,  the  better  vaccination !  The  object 
of  the  Epidemiological  Society,  as  the  stalking-horse 
of  the  medical  trades-unions,  lay  in  those  fees.  Vac- 
cination was  a  pretext  for  a  universal  poll-tax,  set  at 
as  high  a  figure  as  practicable,  to  be  succeeded  when 
possible  by  compulsory  re  vaccination,  with  a  correspond- 
ent tariff  annexed.  Recalling  the  early  days  of  vaccina- 
tion when  the  operation  was  described  as  simplicity 
itself,  and  when  women,  parsons,  and  busybodies  in- 
oculated and  propagated  "the  benign  fluid"  unddr 
Jenner's  authority,  it  was  remarkable  to  have  the  rite 
thus  formalised  and  converted  into  the  peculium  of  a 
priesthood.  Nor  can  it  be  objected  that  when  vaccina- 
tion \vas  thus  practised,  it  was  ineffective  against  small- 
pox ;  for  whenever  its  virtue  is  brought  into  dispute,  we 
are  referred  to  those  primitive  times  and  that  primitive 


490  VACCINATION. 


practice    for   the    most    successful    and   unquestionable 
exhibitions  of  its  power. 

Caveat  emptor  is  a  well-recognised  caution,  which  to 
avoid  was  the  purpose  of  the  Epidemiological  Society. 
A  mercantile  transaction  was  carried  out  under  the 
cloak  of  impartial  science.  No  reader  of  Seaton's  report 
could  suppose  otherwise  than  that  vaccination  was 
universally  regarded  as  an  infallible  preventive  of  small- 
pox, and  that  if  by  any  means  the  English  people  could 
be  subjected  to  its  observance,  they  would  obtain  im- 
munity from  the  disease.  Evidence  to  the  contrary  was 
kept  out  of  sight ;  and  yet  evidence  to  the  contrary  lay 
within  the  knowledge  of  every  medical  man;  and  proof 
might  be  adduced  to  weariness  from  contemporary  medi- 
cal literature  to  show  that  in  this  respect  the  Epidemi- 
ological report  was  contrived  to  blind  and  mislead 
Parliament.  As  a  witness,  none  will  impugn  Sir  Henry 
Holland,  and  writing  in  1839  he  observed — 

Not  only  in  Great  Britain,  but  throughout  every  part  of  the 
globe,  we  find  that  Smallpox  has  been  gradually  increasing  in 
frequency  as  an  epidemic ;  affecting  a  larger  proportion  of  the 
vaccinated  ;  and  inflicting  greater  mortality  in  its  results. 

The  early  enthusiasm  for  the  great  discovery  of  Jenner  swept 
doubts  away ;  and  they  returned  only  tardily,  and  under  the  com- 
pulsion of  facts.  .  .  .  Any  explanation  from  the  ignorant  or  im- 
perfect performance  of  Vaccination  was  found  insufficient  to  meet  the 
number  and  variety  of  the  proofs.  And,  though  more  palpable  at 
one  time  than  another,  according  to  the  greater  or  less  prevalence 
of  epidemic  causes,  yet  every  succeeding  year  has  multiplied  them, 
and  every  statement  from  other  countries  attested  their  truth. 

It  is  no  longer  expedient,  in  any  sense,  to  argue  for  the  present 
practice  of  Vaccination  as  a  certain  or  permanent  preventive  of 
Smallpox.  The  truth  must  be  told,  as  it  is,  that  the  earlier  antici- 
pations on  this  point  have  not  been  realised.  .  .  .  Whether 
Smallpox  may  ever  be  wholly  eradicated  is  a  very  doubtful  question, 
and  the  probability  is  on  the  negative  side.* 

In  statements  like  these,  Dr.  Holland  did  no  more  than 
express  the  contemporary  conviction  of  the  medical  pro- 
fession. Vaccination  was  not  surrendered :  whilst  it  was 

*  Medical  Notes  and  Reflections.  By  Henry  Holland,  M.D.,  F.R.S. 
London  :  1839.  Pp.  401,  415,  416. 


UNIVERSAL  COMPULSION  DEMANDED— 1855.        491 

allowed  that  it  could  not  be  trusted  to  prevent  smallpox, 
it  was  held  that  it  made  the  disease  milder,  and  that 
whilst  its  prophylaxy  wore  out,  it  was  renewable  by 
revaccination.  Obvious  it  was  that  vaccination  thus 
qualified  could  never  obtain  legislative  sanction;  but 
such  sanction  being  imperatively  demanded,  the  Epidemi- 
ological  Society  provided  what  was  thought  requisite  for 
Parliamentary  conviction. 

It  is  said  that  Vaccination  was  a  medical  question ; 
but  all  questions  are  transformed  when  they  ascend  to 
politics.  The  origin,  character,  and  action  of  varieties  of 
animal  virus  are  mysteries,  and  may  remain  mysteries 
with  general  indifference ;  but  when  it  is  claimed  that 
the  inoculation  of  such  virus  prevents  smallpox,  and  that 
whoever  refuses  to  submit  his  child  to  the  said  inocula- 
tion shall  be  fined  20s.,  then  the  matter  is  brought  within 
the  personal  jurisdiction  of  every  citizen,  and  he  becomes 
entitled  to  information,  to  the  exercise  of  his  judgment, 
and  the  expression  of  his  opinion.  As  a  mystery,  vac- 
cination belongs  to  experts ;  but  as  a  Parliamentary  pre- 
ventive of  smallpox  it  is  within  the  discrimination  of  all 
who  can  observe  and  appreciate  the  evidence  of  numbers. 
For  a  legislator  like  Lord  Lyttelton  to  confess  his  ignor- 
ance, and  that  he  moved  under  the  dictation  of  certain 
"  able  and  learned  persons,"  was  to  abandon  his  proper 
function,  and  surrender  himself  to  imposture. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII. 

UNIVERSAL   COMPULSION   DEMANDED — 1855. 

UNDER  the  terror  of  the  20s.  fine,  proclaimed  everywhere 
by  vaccinators  voracious  for  fees,  a  prodigious  extension 
of  practice  was  effected  in  1854.  The  vaccinations  under 
one  year  of  age  were  more  than  doubled;  and  nearly 
300,000  children  above  one  year  old,  to  whom  the  law 
did  not  apply,  were  driven  into  the  net,  and  "  cut  for  the 


492  VACCINATION. 

pox  "  at  the  public  expense.  Thus  the  public  vaccinations 
of  1854  exceeded  the  births  of  that  year  by  75,000. 
Subsequently  the  rate  fell  off  and  fluctuated  as  appears 
from  the  following  table  for  England  and  Wales — 


Years. 

1853 
1854 
1855 
1856 

Births. 

601,223 
623,699 
623,181 
640,840 

Public 
Vaccinations. 

376,218 
698,935 
464,099 
435,012 

Years. 

1857 
1858 
1859 
1860 

Births. 

649,963 
654,914 
669,834 
689,060 

Public 
Vaccinations. 

423,421 

468,008 
455,349 
494,942 

Yet  this  extension  of  practice  did  not  satisfy  the 
medical  adventurers  of  the  Epidemiological  Society. 
They  pointed  out  that  universal  vaccination  was  the 
desideratum,  and  these  results  fell  short  of  universality— 

The  Act  of  1853  was  intended  to  apply  not  to  65  per  cent,  of  the 
births,  but  to  every  child  born.  A  certain  deduction,  it  is  true, 
must  be  made  for  those  privately  vaccinated ;  and  whilst  there  are 
no  data  for  exactly  estimating  the  proportion  of  these  (which 
probably  varies  considerably  in  different  parts  of  the  Kingdom) ; 
yet  taking  the  country  throughout,  there  is  reason  to  believe  that 
not  more  than  from  10  to  15  per  cent,  of  the  children  born  are  so 
vaccinated ;  for  it  is  found  that  in  unions  where  particular  care  is 
bestowed  upon  public  vaccination,  the  number  publicly  operated 
on  is  from  85  to  90  per  cent  of  the  births.  If  we  estimate  80  per 
cent,  only,  as  the  number  requiring  to  be  provided  for  by  public 
vaccination,  the  results  of  last  year  [1854]  fall  short  of  those  which 
should  be  attained  by  nearly  100,000. 

This  estimate  is  worth  attention  as  sustaining  a  con- 
clusion I  have  repeatedly  tried  to  enforce.  Prior  to  1840, 
vaccination  was  a  matter  almost  exclusively  of  private 
concern,  extending  to  no  more  than  10  or  15  per  cent,  of 
the  population — or,  let  us  allow,  20  per  cent. — and  those 
chiefly  the  well  fed,  well  clad,  and  well  housed.  Yet  the 
diminution  of  smallpox,  dating  from  a  period  in  last  cen- 
tury when  variolous  inoculation  was  in  full  practice  and 
cowpox  was  unknown,  is  persistently  ascribed  to  the 
introduction  of  vaccination  which  up  to  1840  did  not 
apply  to  more  than  one-fifth  of  the  people;  the  four- 
fifths  exempt  from  the  prophylaxy  being  notoriously  the 
chief  factors  of  the  disease  ! 

Parliament  having  so  readily  consented  to  the  Compul- 


UNIVERSAL  COMPULSION  DEMANDED— 1855.        493 

sory  Act  of  1853,  it  gave  cause  for  acute  chagrin  that 
more  had  not  been  asked,  when  more  might  so  easily 
have  been  had ;  and  the  operators  behind  the  Epidemi- 
ological  Society  set  to  work  to  try  whether  the  lost 
opportunity  might  not  be  retrieved.  In  a  Memorial 
addressed  to  the  President  of  the  Board  of  Health  in  the 
name  of  the  Society,  in  1855,*  we  find  a  project  developed 
which  lacked  nothing  of  audacity  and  comprehensiveness. 
First,  the  virtue  of  vaccination  was  asserted  in  un- 
qualified terms — 

Smallpox  is  the  most  preventible  of  diseases,  differing  from  all 
other  epidemic  diseases  in  this  remarkable  respect,  that  while  these 
latter  can  only  he  prevented  by  discovering  and  remedying  the 
various  conditions  (as  of  crowding,  want  of  drainage,  filth,  and  the 
like)  which  give  rise  to  or  assist  in  the  dissemination  of  the  specific 
poison  of  each  disease,  the  former  may  be  'guarded  against  and 
prevented  by  a  direct  prophylactic  measure.  To  Smallpox,  in 
short,  there  is  an  antidote.  The  same  cannot  be  affirmed,  in  the 
present  state  of  knowledge,  of  any  other  epidemic  disease. 

That  antidote  is  Vaccination.  In  exact  proportion  as  this  has 
been  efficiently  practised,  have  the  extent  and  severity  of  Smallpox 
been  diminished  over  the  surface  of  the  world.  To  the  neglect  of 
it,  or  to  its  inefficient  performance,  is  due  the  large  existing 
mortality  from  the  disease  in  this  country. 

Evidently  the  advice,  Pecca  fortiter,  had  been  laid  to 
heart  by  the  framer  of  the  preceding  declaration.  Cer- 
tainly the  scheme  for  which  it  stood  as  preamble  required 
violent  justification.  It  was  no  less  than  the  institution 
of  a  Vaccination  Office  with  despotic  powers  as  a  depart- 
ment of  State.  The  appointment  of  public  vaccinators 
subordinate  to  the  Board  of  Guardians,  subject  to  con- 
tract, and  paid  out  of  the  poor-rate,  was  held  to  be  a 
degrading  form  of  service:  it  prejudiced  vaccination  as 
a  form  of  alms,  and  reduced  medical  men  to  the  rank  of 
parochial  officers.  Worst  of  all,  the  pay  was  bad— 

The  provisions  for  the  remuneration  of  public  vaccinators  have 
not  been  such  as  to  secure  their  hearty  and  zealous  co-operation. 

*  Memorial  presented  to  the  President  of  the  Board  of  Health,  by  the 
President  and  Council  of  the  Epidemiological  Society,  on  a  proper  State 
Provision  for  the  Prevention  of  Smallpox  and  the  Extension  of  Vaccina- 
tion. Ordered  to  be  printed  by  the  House  of  Commons,  1st  March,  1855. 


494  VACCINATION 


The  most  injurious  consequences  have  undoubtedly  resulted  from 
this,  both  in  limiting  the  numbers  vaccinated,  and  in  discouraging 
the  vaccinators  from  giving  that  pains  and  attention  to  watch  the 
progress  of  the  Vaccine  Disease  which  are  imperatively  necessary. 

They  must,  therefore,  be  emancipated.  An  independ- 
ent organisation,  with  a  medical  chief,  was  essential  alike 
to  the  mystery  and  dignity  of  the  craft,  and  the  universal 
and  efficient  exercise  of  its  functions.  To  save  the 
country  from  smallpox,  two  conditions  were  requisite — 

First,  that  it  be  made  a  matter  of  legal  obligation  on  all  persons 
resident  within  England  and  Wales,  whether  born  within  that 
portion  of  the  Kingdom  or  not,  to  give  evidence  of  being  vacci- 
nated. 

Second,  that  to  achieve  this  end,  there  be  provided  administra- 
tive science,  zeal,  and  activity. 

The  union  of  these  conditions  is  indispensable ;  either  without 
the  other  will  fail. 

It  was  pointed  out  that  the  Act  of  1853  only  applied 
to  children  born  in  England  and  Wales  after  a  certain 
date — 

It  does  not  extend  to  the  whole  existing  population,  nor  to  immi- 
grants. It  is  well  known  that  Smallpox  is  largely  imported  into 
this  country,  and  kept  up  from  Ireland.  These  Irish  not  only  form 
a  nidus  for  the  disease  in  towns  where  they  collect  in  large  num- 
bers, but  they  disseminate  it  throughout  the  country  at  harvest 
time,  and  in  the  season  of  hopping. 

To  fight  and  overcome  smallpox,  to  meet  and  arrest 
epidemics,  the  law  must  be  administered  by  qualified, 
zealous,  and  "adequately  remunerated"  officers;  but 
"the  keystone  to  any  effective  system"  must  be  a 
commander-in-chief — 

No  compulsory  enactment,  however  comprehensive  and  stringent ; 
no  alteration  in  the  mode  of  appointing  public  vaccinators,  how- 
ever desirable ;  no  additional  remuneration  and  encouragement 
to  them,  however  necessary,  will  be  sufficient  to  secure  the  grand 
object  to  be  had  in  view,  the  Universal  diffusion  of  Vaccination  and 
the  Extinction  of  Smallpox,  unless  there  be  some  competent  and 
energetic  Medical  Officer  to  harmonise  the  whole  system  and  keep 
it  in  constant  activity ;  to  examine  continually  its  working,  that 
what  is  defective  may  be  immediately  supplied ;  and,  in  cases  in 
which  it  is  required,  to  enforce  the  law,  whether  against  those  who 
refuse  to  submit  themselves  to  Vaccination,  or  against  those  who, 
by  travelling  about,  diffuse  Smallpox  throughout  the  Kingdom. 


UNIVERSAL  COMPULSION  DEMANDED— 1855.        495 

It  was  further  said,  "  The  changes  thus  proposed  have 
long  been  looked  forward  to  by  the  president  and  council 
of  the  Epidemiological  Society  as  essential  to  a  proper 
system  of  public  vaccination  " — of  which,  indeed,  there 
was  no  doubt ;  for  to  effect  the  said  changes  was  the 
chief  end  of  the  Society  and  of  its  ruling  spirit,  Dr. 
Edward  C.  Seaton.  Though  it  may  seem  incredible,  it 
will  not  surprise  any  who  have  studied  the  habit  of  the 
thorough-bred  quack,  that  the  designated  commander-in- 
chief ,  "  the  keystone  of  the  system,"  the  miraculous 
combination  of  scientific  and  administrative  ability,  was 
none  other  than  the  projector,  Dr.  Seaton  himself  !  He 
it  was  who  in  fancy  saw  himself  the  elected  head  of  the 
New  Vaccination  Office,  with  place  and  pay  at  his  dis- 
posal, and  power  to  examine  and  vaccinate  every  resident 
upon  English  soil. 

The  Memorial  concluded  with  the  opinion  that  in  view 
of  "  the  continued  high  rate  of  mortality  from  smallpox," 
some  measure  should  be  concerted  "  for  carrying  out  the 
alterations  suggested  during  the  present  (1855)  session  of 
Parliament." 

It  goes  without  saying  that  the  project  developed  in 
the  Memorial  was  an  impracticability ;  and  that  it  should 
have  been  "  long  looked  forward  to  by  the  president  and 
council  of  the  Epidemiological  Society"  proves  what 
manner  of  dreamers  they  were.  The  mortality  from 
smallpox  in  England  and  Wales  constituted,  they  said, 
2  per  cent,  of  the  national  mortality ;  but  not  even  the 
reduction  of  the  2  per  cent,  could  have  reconciled  the 
people  to  the  New  Vaccination  Office  with  its  ruling 
spirit,  its  expenditure,  and  its  inquisitors.  Bad  as  small- 
pox may  be,  there  is  worse  than  smallpox;  and  much 
worse  would  have  been  Dr.  Seaton  with  his  pernicious 
quackery  and  his  intrusive  myrmidons.  The  recrudes- 
cence of  similar  projects  from  time  to  time  attests  the 
existence  of  visionaries  who  not  only  misunderstand  the 
temper  and  traditions  of  their  countrymen,  but  the  con- 
stitution of  human  nature  itself. 

The  year  1855  was  one  of  war  and  excitement,  but  a 


496  VACCINATION. 

bill  drawn  on  the  lines  of  the  Memorial  was  introduced 
to  the  House  of  Commons  providing  that  from  the  1st  of 
January,  1856,  the  vaccination  of  the  people  should  be 
committed  to  a  medical  superintendent  with  a  medical 
staff,  drawing  their  salaries  from  the  Treasury,  who 
would  take  over  the  existing  local  administration  from 
the  Poor  Law  authorities,  and  organise  and  develop  it 
afresh.  Further,  it  was  provided — 

That  every  adult  person  resident  in  England  and  Wales  on  1st 
January,  1856,  who  had  not  already  been  successfully  vaccinated, 
nor  had  Smallpox,  be  vaccinated  by  a  duly  qualified  practitioner, 
or  by  a  public  vaccinator,  within  three  months  of  that  date,  and 
submit  to  an  inspection  by  the  medical  man,  or  public  vaccinator, 
eight  days  after  vaccination,  under  a  penalty  of  £1. 

That  adults  not  born  in  England  and  Wales,  and  coming  to  re- 
side therein,  be  vaccinated  (if  not  already  vaccinated)  within  three 
months  of  their  arrival,  under  a  penalty  of  .£1. 

That  children  be  taken  by  their  parents  to  be  vaccinated  within 
three  months  after  1st  January,  1856,  and  be  inspected  eight  days 
after  vaccination,  under  a  penalty  of  £1. 

That  children  brought  to  England  and  Yf  ales  from  other  parts 
be  vaccinated  in  like  manner  within  three  months  of  their  arrival. 

That  children  and  adults  be  revaccinated  until  the  operation  is 
declared  successful.  If  after  repeated  vaccinations,  a  patient  prove 
insusceptible,  a  certificate  to  that  effect  shall  protect  him  from  the 
penalty  otherwise  rigidly  inflicted. 

That  Public  Vaccinators  be  entitled  to  a  fee  of  2s.  6d.  for  every 
child  or  adult  successfully  vaccinated  within  two  miles  of  the  Vac- 
cinator's  residence,  and  3s.  6d.  if  beyond  that  limit.  That  Medical 
Practitioners,  not  public  vaccinators,  be  entitled  to  Is.  for  every 
person  entered  by  them  on  the  register  as  vaccinated. 

That  a  certificate  of  successful  vaccination  be  granted  for  the 
trifling  fee  of  6d. 

That  the  Superintendent  be  empowered  to  institute  rigid  inquiry 
and  to  prosecute  for  penalties  wherever  he  suspects  the  regulations 
of  the  Act  have  been  neglected  or  violated. 

Here,  indeed,  was  a  dose  of  despotism  for  Englishmen! 
Nothing  being  done  in  1855,  there  was  time  for  recon- 
sideration. It  was  felt  that  the  withdrawal  of  vaccina- 
tion from  local  administration  was  too  revolutionary ; 
and  another  bill  was  introduced  in  1856,  under  the 
direction  of  Mr.  W.  F.  Cowper,  President  of  the  Board  of 
Health  (dropping  the  New  Vaccination  Office),  with 


UNIVERSAL  COMPULSION  DEMANDED— 1855.         497 

provisions  for  the  inspection  and  vaccination  of  children 
in  public  schools,  and  of  emigrants ;  for  revaccination  in 
the  event  of  epidemics ;  and  for  coroners'  inquests  on 
unvaccinated  children  dying  of  smallpox.  There  was  no 
popular  demand  for  such  legislation.  It  was  promoted 
by  a  group  of  medical  place-hunters  operating  under  the 
mask  of  the  Epidemiological  Society.  The  solitary 
petition  in  its  favour  was  presented,  26th  May,  1856,  by 
Mr.  James  Furness  Marson,  a  comrade  of  Dr.  Seaton  in 
the  direction  of  the  Society.  Marson  was  resident  sur- 
geon of  the  Smallpox  Hospital  at  Highgate,  and  as 
evidence  of  his  unscrupulous  advocacy,  we  may  take  the 
following  assertions — 

Your  Petitioner  has,  in  the  course  of  twenty  years,  vaccinated 
upwards  of  40,000  persons,  and  has  never  seen  any  evil  results 
traceable  to  Vaccination,  with  the  exception  of  a  single  instance  in 
which  measles  occurred  at  the  same  time,  and  four  or  five  examples 
of  rather*  severely  sore  arms  arising  from  lymph  recently  taken 
from  the  cow.  He  has  never  seen  other  diseases  communicated 
from  the  Vaccine  Disease,  nor  does  he  believe  in  the  popular 
reports  that  they  are  ever  so  communicated. 

The  mortality  from  Smallpox  in  the  Unvaccinated,  of  cases  taken 
generally,  is  35  per  cent. ;  and  among  the  Vaccinated  attacked  by 
Smallpox  it  is  7  per  cent. 

Among  children  under  fourteen  years  of  age  who  have  been 
vaccinated,  Smallpox  hardly  ever  proves  fatal. 

As  an  example  of  what  can  be  done  by  efficient  Vaccination, 
your  Petitioner  begs  to  state  that  not  one  of  the  servants  or  nurses 
of  the  Smallpox  Hospital  has  had  Smallpox  for  the  last  twenty 
years.  They  have  all  been  either  vaccinated  or  revaccinated  on 
coming  to  live  at  the  Hospital. 

The  Petitioner  omitted  to  mention  how  many  of  the 
said  servants  and  nurses  had  entered  the  Hospital  as 
patients,  and  were  pleased  to  remain  as  officials.  Pre- 
varication throughout  was  the  note  of  Marson's  petition  : 
he  might  argue  that  what  he  stated  was  true — true  under 
conditions  and  reserves  unstated. 

It  is  often  observed  that  the  crafty  never  operate  so 

successfully  as  when  they  have  the  earnest  and  ingenuous 

for  instruments ;  and  in  Mr.  Cowper,  President  of  the 

Board  of  Health,  the  wire-pullers  of  the  Epidemiological 

32  t 


498  VACCINATION. 


Society  had  just  such  a  tool.  He  believed  what  he  was 
told,  and  delivered  it  with  his  own  sincerity.  In  moving 
the  second  reading  of  the  Bill  on  31st  March,  he  repre- 
sented its  object  as  "nothing  more  than  the  consolidation 
and  amendment  of  preceding  Acts ;"  and  went  on  to 
say — 

It  is  admitted  by  every  medical  man  whose  opinion  is  worth  a 
moment's  consideration,  that  Vaccination  is  a  specific  against 
Smallpox ;  of  course  I  mean  where  the  operation  is  properly  per- 
formed. In  fact,  it  is  a  point  decided  in  the  medical  world  that 
Vaccination,  when  properly  performed,  is  a  guarantee  against 
Smallpox,  except  in  extremely  rare  cases ;  and  no  evidence  has 
been  produced  to  justify  the  idea  that  it  is  attended  with  injurious 
consequences.  Statistics  show  that  in  proportion  as  Vaccination 
is  extended,  the  mortality  from  Smallpox  is  diminished. 

And  so  on  ;  the  lesson  being  recited  with  all  the  docility 
of  a  good  child.  Mr.  Henley  struck  a  different  note — 

There  is  considerable  dissatisfaction  throughout  the  country  with 
the  mode  in  which  Vaccination  is  performed.  In  my  own  neigh- 
bourhood, for  example,  the  poor  people  complain  that  all  sorts  of 
eruptions  appear  on  their  children  after  the  Vaccination  they  are 
compelled  to  undergo  ;  and  though  they  may  be  quite  wrong,  you 
cannot  persuade  them  to  the  contrary.  Then,  too,  I  cannot  approve 
of  the  transfer  of  Vaccination  from  the  Guardians  to  a  Central 
Medical  Board.  That  change  must  be  removed  from  the  bill. 

The  second  reading  having  passed  unopposed  on  31st 
March,  and  nothing  more  being  heard  of  the  bill,  Mr.  T. 
Duncombe,  who  knew  the  ropes  of  the  parliamentary 
ship,  grew  suspicious,  and  on  7th  July  asked  Mr.  Cowper 
if  he  could  fix  a  time  when  the  bill  would  be  brought  on. 
Suspicion  was  amply  justified  by  Mr.  Cowper's  answer. 
He  said — 

The  bill  is  not  one  in  which  Members  take  any  great  interest. 
It  is  one  of  that  class  of  bills  which  are  usually  taken  at  a  late 
period  of  the  evening;  and  I  hope  the  Hon.  Member  will  not 
object  to  its  being  taken  at  the  same  time  as  other  bills  of  similar 
character. 

To  which  Mr.  Duncombe  replied — 

If  Hon.  Members  do  not  care  for  the  bill,  they  do  great  injustice 


UNIVERSAL  COMPULSION  DEMANDED— 1855.        499 

to  the  people,  because  it  is  a  compulsory  bill.  Two  hundred 
petitions  have  been  presented  against  it,  and  only  one  in  its  favour. 
A  more  arrant  job  than  this  bill  I  never  knew,  and  I  hope  an 
opportunity  may  be  given  me  to  oppose  it. 

Mr.  Cowper's  simplicity  was  apparent  in  his  answer. 
He  said — 

I  do  not  mean  that  the  bill  is  of  no  importance,  for  it  is  intended 
to  check  the  ravages  of  a  disease  which  kills  thousands  every  year. 
What  I  intended  was,  that  the  opposition  which  my  Hon.  Friend 
offers  is  not  shared  by  other  Members.  My  Hon.  Friend  says  the 
bill  will  make  Vaccination  compulsory ;  but  Vaccination  is  com- 
pulsory already.  The  purpose  of  the  bill  is  to  consolidate  and  im- 
prove existing  legislation.  It  would  be  much  fairer  if  my  Hon. 
Friend  brought  in  a  bill  to  repeal  compulsion.  I  will  not  bring  in 
the  bill  after  12  o'clock  at  night. 

The  pledge  not  to  bring  on  the  bill  after  midnight 
settled  its  fate.  Its  promoters,  aware  that  its  provisions 
would  not  bear  discussion,  had  reckoned  on  its  unopposed 
passage  at  an  hour  when  members  were  few,  weary,  and 
indifferent.  Mr.  Duncombe's  vigilance  defeated  the 
scheme,  which  Mr.  Cowper  incontinently  revealed.  The 
bill  was  brought  into  Committee  on  10th  July,  and  the 
order  for  its  reading  discharged  amid  general  satisfaction. 
Mr.  Henley  observed — 

I  am  very  glad  this  bill  is  withdrawn.  The  endeavour  to  make 
Vaccination  compulsory  has  been  most  mischievous.  Vaccination 
was  quietly  making  its  way.  People  were  adopting  it  more  and 
more  ;  but  from  the  moment  it  was  made  compulsory,  they  began 
to  think  every  evil  which  happened  to  their  children  afterwards 
ensued  from  it.  I  have  no  objection  to  refer  the  question  to  a 
Select  Committee  as  suggested,  but  whatever  their  report,  nothing 
will  satisfy  me  that  it  is  advisable  to  make  Vaccination  compulsory. 

Mr.  Duncombe  agreed  that  the  course  proposed  was 
judicious — 

The  question  is  delicate  and  difficult,  and  investigation  should 
precede  legislation.  In  1853,  at  a  later  period  of  the  session  than 
that  at  which  we  have  arrived,  the  Compulsory  Vaccination  Act 
was  smuggled  through  the  House.  Fortunately  it  became  inopera- 
tive through  its  own  defects,  which  it  is  now  proposed  to  remove, 
and  to  make  the  law  more  stringent;  but  while  I  believe  that 
great  good  has  resulted  from  Vaccination,  I  do  not  think  we  should 
try  to  encourage  it  by  penal  enactment. 


500  VACCINATION. 


Mr.  Cowper,  in  protesting  against  surrender,  observed — 

Some  argue  as  if  people  should  never  be  forced  to  do  what  they 
do  not  like ;  but  the  force  of  this  objection  is  greatly  weakened 
when  we  recollect  that  in  compelling  Vaccination  we  are  not 
obliging  parents  to  do  anything  disadvantageous  to  themselves, 
but  merely  to  take  precautions  against  a  loathsome  and  terrible 
disease. 

The  most  intolerable  tyrannies  vindicate  themselves 
by  the  advantages  they  enforce  on  their  perverse  sub- 
jects. The  claim  made  for  vaccination,  that  it  protects 
the  vaccinated  from  smallpox,  deprived  the  vaccinated 
of  any  right  to  complain  of  risk  of  injury  from  the  un- 
vaccinated.  Moreover,  that  those  who  were  persuaded 
that  vaccination  neither  prevented  nor  mitigated  small- 
pox should  be  required  to  undergo  an  operation,  that  was 
to  them  a  cruel  and  dangerous  imposture,  was  surely  a 
wrong  of  the  most  excruciating  character.  It  was  well 
that  neither  the  bill  of  1855  or  1856  was  allowed  to 
pass ;  but  if  either  had  passed,  it  might  have  brought  the 
question  of  compulsion  to  an  earlier  issue. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX. 

JOHN   GIBBS'S  LETTER — 1855. 

As  we  have  said,  there  was  little  living  confidence  in 
vaccination.  Jenner's  undertaking,  "  that  the  person 
inoculated  with  cowpox  is  rendered  perfectly  secure  from 
the  infection  of  smallpox,"  had  been  everywhere  con- 
spicuously belied.  But  latterly  a  new  faith  had  come 
into  existence  as  to  the  preventibility  of  disease  and  the 
possibility  of  its  suppression ;  and,  thus  persuaded,  the 
public  were  less  disposed  to  be  sceptical  toward  new  or 
revived  prophylactic  impostures.  Favoured  by  this  dis- 
position of  the  public  mind,  a  clique  of  vaccinators, 
operating  under  cover  of  the  Epidemiological  Society, 


JOHN  GIBBS'S  LETTER— 1855.  501 

were  able  to  obtain  concessions  from  Parliament  which, 
prior  to  the  sanitary  evangel,  were  unattainable.  It  was 
only  when  too  audacious,  they  proposed  to  set  up  a 
Vaccination  Office,  endowed  from  the  Exchequer,  with 
inquisitorial  and  punitive  functions,  that  they  suffered 
check. 

To  resist  doctrine  it  is  necessary  to  possess  doctrine. 
People  might  distrust  or  dislike  vaccination,  but  they 
were  at  a  great  disadvantage  against  aggressors  until 
prepared  to  justify  their  distrust  and  dislike  in  definite 
and  scientific  form,  setting  evidence  against  assertion, 
and  veracious  against  factitious  statistics.  Unfortunately 
the  mischief  of  coercive  legislation  was  consummated  ere 
opposition  was  organised.  The  first  to  frame  a  compre- 
hensive indictment  against  vaccination  was  John  Gibbs, 
an  Irish  gentleman.  It  took  the  form  of  a  letter 
addressed  to  Sir  Benjamin  Hall,  dated  from  Maze  Hill 
Cottage,  St.  Leonards-on-Sea,  30th  June,  1855.  On  the 
motion  of  Joseph  Brotherton,  M.P.  for  Salford,  the  letter 
was  ordered  to  be  printed  by  the  House  of  Commons, 
31st  March,  1856.* 

Mr.  Gibbs  opened  his  letter  with  drawing  attention  to 
the  fact  that  whilst  the  Compulsory  Act  of  1853  was 
the  first  direct  attack  upon  personal  liberty  in  medical 
matters,  there  was  "no  subject  upon  which  so  many 
otherwise  well-informed  persons  betrayed  such  ignorance 
and  credulity  as  upon  vaccination."  Indeed,  upon 
nothing  were  the  legislators  who  enacted  compulsion  so 
frank  as  in  their  confession  of  ignorance  and  submission 
to  medical  instruction.  What  was  there  to  justify 
legislation  on  terms  thus  abject  against  their  fellow- 
countrymen  ? — 

Why  is  Vaccination  held  in  abhorrence  by  so  many  ?  Have 
those  who  reject  it  no  weighty  reasons  to  justify  their  rejection  ? 

*  COMPULSORY  VACCINATION. — Copy  of  a  Letter,  dated  30th  June, 
1 855,  addressed  to  the  President  of  the  Board  of  Health  by  JOHN  GIBBS, 
Esquire,  entitled,  Compulsory  Vaccination  briefly  considered  in  Us 
Scientific,  Religious,  and  Political  Aspects.  Ordered  by  the  House  of 
Commons  to  be  printed,  31st  March,  1856.— Folio,  pp.  31. 


502  VACCINATION. 


They  do  not  believe  that  it  affords  an  efficient  and  assured  protec- 
tion against  the  invasion  of  Smallpox  ;  they  have  a  natural  disgust 
to  the  transfer  of  a  loathsome  virus  from  a  diseased  brute,  through 
they  know  not  how  many  unhealthy  human  mediums,  to  the 
veins  of  their  children  ;  they  have  a  dread,  a  conviction,  that  other 
filthy  diseases,  tending  to  embitter  and  shorten  life,  are  frequently 
transmitted  through  the  vaccine  virus  ;  they  cannot  bring  them- 
selves to  believe  that  the  true  way  to  health  can  be  to  corrupt  the 
blood  and  lower  the  vital  energies  by  the  infusion  of  a  poison  and 
its  consequent  train  of  morbid  influences  ;  and  further,  they  have 
a  conscientious  conviction  that  voluntarily  to  propagate  disease  is 
to  set  at  naught  the  Divine  Providence  and  violate  the  Divine  Will. 
Are  such  scruples  and  objections  entitled  to  no  respect  ?  Should 
they  be  permitted  to  have  no  force  ?  Are  they  capable  of  no 
justification  ?  Should  the  sole  answer  to  them  be  a  Coercion  Act  ? 
Such  is  not  the  best  way  to  disarm  hostility,  and  to  ensure  con- 
viction. Who  would  put  faith  in  the  professions  of  a  philanthropist 
who  should  threaten  the  objects  of  his  beneficence  with  fine  or 
imprisonment  if  they  did  not  accept  his  proffered  boon  ?  Or  who 
could  receive  with  cordiality  and  respect  the  doctor  of  physic  who 
should  thunder  at  the  door,  armed  with  scab  and  lancet,  threaten- 
ing to  assault  the  inmates  if  they  did  not  accept  his  services  ?  If 
Vaccination  be  indeed  a  blessing  which  must  needs  be  showered 
upon  the  land,  would  it  not  be  more  becoming  in  a  wise  Government 
and  a  free  people  to  trust  to  the  dissemination  of  information  rather 
than  attempt  to  make  unconverted  converts  by  force  ? 

Had  smallpox  been  preventible  by  vaccination,  such 
contention  would  have  been  useless.  The  virtue  of  the 
rite,  manifest  in  its  efficacy,  would  have  secured  its 
observance.  The  bitterness  of  compulsion  lay  in  the 
attempt  to  enforce  imposture,  and  to  suppress  the  con- 
victions of  those  whose  perceptions  were  sharper,  and 
whose  loyalty  to  right  was  more  determined  than  in  the 
mass  of  the  nation.  Mr.  Gibbs  had  no  difficulty  in 
adducing  evidence  in  proof  that  vaccination  did  not 
prevent  smallpox.  The  reports  of  the  Kegistrar-General 
and  the  hospitals  furnished  testimony  in  such  profusion, 
that  his  difficulty  lay  in  the  selection  of  examples  likely 
to  be  most  convincing.  From  the  Lancet,  of  21st  May, 
1853,  he  took  the  following  confession — 

In  the  public  mind  extensively,  and  to  a  more  limited  extent  in 
the  medical  profession  itself,  doubts  are  known  to  exist  as  to  the 
efficacy  and  eligibility  of  Vaccination.  The  failures  of  the  opera- 
tion have  been  numerous  and  discouraging. 


JOHN  GIBBS'S  LETTER— 1855.  503 

Nor  did  the  failure  to  prevent  smallpox  exhaust  the 
condemnation  of  vaccination.  Ineffective,  it  was  far 
from  harmless.  Itself  a  disease,  it  was  a  conductor  and 
excitant  of  other  diseases,  and,  inoculcated,  occasionally 
bore  with  it  other  company.  Erysipelas,  as  Jenner  taught, 
was  the  note  of  successful  vaccination ;  but  erysipelas, 
not  being  a  limitable  affection,  was  frequently  a  mortal 
one ;  and  deaths  from  erysipelas  as  a  sequence  of  vacci- 
nation were  of  constant  occurrence.  Then  there  were 
skin  eruptions,  carbuncular  and  glandular  swellings, 
tuberculosis,  scrofula,  .syphilis,  etc.,  either  provoked  or 
inseminated  with  the  vaccine  disease.  Such  results 
were  so  distinctly  recognised  that,  in  the  Lancet,  of  the 
llth  November,  1854,  it  was  stated — 

So  widely  extended  is  the  dread  that  along  with  the  prophylaxy 
something  else  may  be  inoculated,  that  few  medical  practitioners 
would  care  to  vaccinate  their  own  children  from  a  source  of  the 
purity  of  which  they  are  not  well  assured. 

But  the  care  vaccinators  exercised  over  their  own  off- 

Iring  was  impracticable  for  the  multitude.    Again,  citing 
e  Lancet,  23rd  October,  ]  854,  it  was  said — 

The  poor  are  told  that  they  must  carry  their  children  to  be 
vaccinated  by  medical  men  who  may  be  strangers  to  them.  They 
apprehend — and  the  apprehension  is  not  altogether  unfounded,  or 
unshared  by  the  educated  classes,  that  the  vaccine  matter  employed 
may  carry  with  it  the  seeds  of  other  diseases  not  less  loathsome 
than  the  one  it  is  intended  to  prevent. 

Useless  against  smallpox,  and  injurious  in  itself,  it 
remained  to  test  the  influence  of  vaccination  on  the 
health  of  the  community — 

What  is  the  per  centage  of  deaths  from  all  epidemics  among  the 
Vaccinated  as  compared  with  the  Unvaccinated  ?  What  is  the 
per  centage  respectively  of  cases  of  disease  of  the  respiratory 
organs,  of  skin  diseases,  of  scrofula,  and  of  convulsions  ?  What 
is  the  average  duration  of  life  among  the  Vaccinated  and  among 
the  Unvaccinated  ?  Of  a  thousand  children  vaccinated  within  a 
given  time  after  birth,  and  of  a  thousand  Unvaccinated,  the  whole 
two  thousand  being  placed  as  nearly  as  possible  in  like  circum- 
stances, what  per  centage  in  each  thousand  attain  the  age  of 
puberty  ? 


504  VACCINATION. 


These  are  statistics  with  which  the  advocates  of  Vaccination  have 
never  grappled.  Is  it  not,  then,  rather  premature  to  decide  that 
Vaccination  is  an  unmixed  good,  a  boon  which  we  ought  not  only 
gratefully  to  accept,  but  which  we  should  even  combine  to  force 
upon  the  acceptance  of  others  ? 

If  it  should  appear  that  before  a  given  age  the  rate  of  mortality 
from  all  causes  be  the  same  among  a  thousand  vaccinated  and  a 
thousand  unvaccinated  children,  of  what  avail  is  Vaccination  ? 
Of  what  import  is  it,  as  a  public  question,  in  what  shape  death 
claims  his  allotted  number  of  victims,  whether  by  Smallpox, 
Scarlet  Fever,  or  Hooping  Cough  ?  If,  however,  the  rate  of 
mortality  should  prove  to  be  greater  among  the  Vaccinated  than 
among  the  Unvaccinated,  how  shall  we  avoid  the  conclusion  that 
Vaccination  is  a  curse  and  not  a  blessing  ? 

The  interdependence  of  the  forms  of  zymotic  disease, 
so  luminously  displayed  by  Dr.  Watt  in  the  statistics  of 
Glasgow,  was  apparently  a  conception  in  excess  of  the 
capacity  of  the  average  medical  mind.  It  was  the  cus- 
tom of  vaccinators  to  treat  smallpox  as  a  solitary  exist- 
ence, any  diminution  of  which  was  ascribed  to  the 
observance  of  their  rite,  and  any  increase  to  its  neglect, 
although  the  observance  of  the  rite  was  neither  less  in 
the  waxing,  nor  more  in  the  waning  of  the  disease.  With 
many  illustrations  from  medical  literature,  Mr.  Gibbs  en- 
forced the  lesson  that  diseases  were  not  irregular  and 
detached  disasters,  but  varied  manifestations  of  a  com- 
mon disorder :  that  when  one  form  prevailed,  other  forms 
abated  or  disappeared ;  that  health,  and  the  defect  of 
health,  were  referable  to  habits  and  conditions  of  life ; 
and  that  the  consequent  rate  of  mortality  was  unaffected 
whether  smallpox  happened  to  be  one  of  its  factors — 
indeed,  in  numerous  instances,  a  reduced  rate  of  mortality 
signalised  the  prevalence  of  smallpox.  In  short,  to  sup- 
pose that  the  creation  and  culture  of  an  ailment  like  vac- 
cination could  by  any  means  tend  to  the  invigoration 
of  life  was  to  reverse  the  canon — that  health  always  and 
everywhere  was  the  best  defence  of  health. 

Among  the  supporters  of  his  thesis,  none  had  greater 
weight  than  Dr.  George  Gregory.  Adducing  "  the  expe- 
rience which  twenty  years  of  official  connection  with 


JOHN  GIBBS'S  LETTER— 1855. 


505 


the  Smallpox  and  Vaccination  Hospital  had  given  him," 
he  asserted — 

The  great  principle  that  there  are  no  diseases  strictly  isolated 
from  others.  They  are  links  in  a  chain — 

"  All  are  but  parts  of  one  stupendous  whole." 

They  must  he  viewed  in  conjunction,  if  we  would  hope  to  form  just, 
enlarged,  and  legitimate  views  of  the  character  and  pathological 
affinities  of  each. 

Long  surmised,  but  never  proved,  until  the  statistical 
inquiries  of  recent  times  showed  its  correctness,  Dr.  Gre- 
gory continues — 

We  may,  for  want  of  a  better  name,  call  this  curious  doctrine  the 
Law  of  Vicarious  Mortality ;  by  which  is  understood  that  whenever 
one  epidemic  diminishes,  another  increases,  so  that  the  sum  total 
of  epidemic  mortality  remains,  on  an  average  of  years,  nearly  the 
same. 

EPIDEMIC  MORTALITY  IN  ENGLAND  AND  WALES  DURING  1838, 
1839,  AND  1840. 


. 

Year  1838. 

Year  1839. 

Year  1840. 

16,268 

9,131 

10,434 

Measles  ...         

6,514 

10,937 

9,326 

5,802 

10,325 

19,816 

Total  Mortality  by  the  Exanthe- 

28,584 

30,393 

39,576 

9,107 

8,165 

6,132 

Total  Epidemic  Mortality  

37,691 

38,558 

45,708 

Total  Mortality  throughout  Eng- 

342,529 

338,979 

359,561 

We  learn  from  this  table,  that  every  year  is  distinguished  by 
some  master  epidemic.  In  1838,  Smallpox  was  the  ruling  epidemic 
throughout  England.  In  1839,  Measles  and  Scarlet  Fever  struggled 
for  the  mastery.  In  1840,  Scarlet  Fever  was  so  general  and  so  fatal, 
that  the  mortality  by  it  exceeded  by  one-fifth  the  ravages  of  Small- 
pox during  the  epidemic  season  of  1838,  and  more  than  doubled  the 
mortality  by  that  disease  in  1839.  .  .  . 


506  VACCINATION. 


Everything  teaches  us  that  when  one  avenue  to  death  is  closed 
another  opens — 

"Noctes  atque  dies  patet  atri  janua  Ditis." 

Vaccination,  great  as  its  merits  are  [What  are  they  ? — J.  G.] ,  and 
no  one  more  fully  appreciates  them  than  I  do,  does  not,  and  cannot 
do,  all  that  its  too  sanguine  admirers  promised.  The  blessings  of 
Vaccination  are  met  and  balanced  by  the  Law  of  Vicarious  Mor- 
tality. How  and  why  is  this?  The  explanation  is  easy.  The  weak 
giants  of  a  nursery  must  be  weeded  out.  If  weakly  children  do  not 
ill  victims  to  Smallpox,  they  live  to  fall  into  the  jaws  of  tyrants 
scarcely  less  inexorable.  Scarlet  Fever  and  Measles  are  both  ad- 
vancing in  respect  of  mortality ;  and  the  increase  of  deaths  by 
Hooping  Cough  since  this  century  set  in  [that  is,  since  the  intro- 
duction of  Vaccination. — J.  G.]  is  quite  extraordinary.* 

The  concession  of  so  much  was  the  concession  of  all. 
If  smallpox  was  merely  displaced  to  be  replaced,  and  the 
tale  of  death  maintained  by  cognate  diseases,  what  was 
there  to  claim  for  vaccination,  even  if  it  were  allowed  to 
have  an  influence  adverse  to  smallpox  ?  Where  were  the 
lives  saved  ?  and  where  the  glory  of  the  immortal  Jenner  ? 

The  advocates  of  compulsory  vaccination  were  accus- 
tomed to  cite  countries  like  Austria,  where  the  practice 
was  enforced,  for  English  imitation.  Let  us  then  com- 
pare, said  Mr.  Gibbs,  the  death-rate  of  the  chief  centres 
of  English  population  with  the  death-rate  of  the  chief 
divisions  of  Austria,  and  note  which  had  the  advantage 
in  the  years  1850-51 — 

Death-rate  Death-rate 

per  1000.  per  1000. 


England  and  Wales 22-0 

London 23'3 

Liverpool  29'0 

Manchester 29'0 

Birmingham 23  3 

Leeds  24'6 

Dublin  26-8 

Cork   .  ..  23-3 


Lower  Austria 35'7 

Upper  Austria 27'7 

Styria   30'3 

Bohemia  38'6 

Moravia 30'9 

Galicia 30'8 

Lombardy  33'9 

Venetia 33-3 


These  figures  required  no  commentary.     If  vaccination 
had  stopped  smallpox  in  Austria,  it  evidently  had  not 

*  Eruptive  Fevers,  pp.  5-8.     London,  1843. 


JOHN  GIBBS'S  LETTER— 1855.  507 

reduced  mortality  even  to  the  level  of  the  most  insani- 
tary English  towns. 

Assuming,  said  Mr.  Gibbs,  that  vaccination  is  entitled 
to  all  the  credit  claimed  for  it,  let  us  endeavour  to  esti- 
mate the  gain,  if  it  should  be  enforced.  The  yearly 
average  of  deaths  from  all  causes,  in  England  and  Wales, 
is  370,000,  of  which  about  7,000  are  from  smallpox— 

This  7,000,  then,  is  the  limit  of  gain  which  enforced  Vaccination 
could  confer ;  but  from  the  7,000  should  be  deducted  about  one- 
third  for  deaths  from  Smallpox  among  the  Vaccinated ;  and  from 
the  remainder  should  be  deducted  an  equivalent  for  the  deaths 
caused  immediately  and  remotely  by  Vaccination ;  and  another 
equivalent  for  the  deaths  resulting  from  the  Law  of  Vicarious 
Mortality.  This  done,  it  would  require  no  little  ingenuity  to  dis- 
cover a  balance  in  favour  of  Vaccination. 

Having  thus  argued  the  matter  out,  was  not  Mr.  Gibbs 
justified  in  asking — 

What  would  be  thought  of  the  tinker  who  would  knock  a  hole  in 
the  bottom  of  his  saucepan  lest  one  should  be  burned  there  in  the 
ordinary  way  ? 

Yet  it  is  just  what  the  vaccinator  does ;  and  when  he  finds — as  he 
might  have  foreseen,  had  he  been  governed  by  common  sense — 
that  his  saucepan  does  not  wear  a  bit  the  better,  but  rather  the 
worse,  he  gravely  endeavours  to  excuse  the  failure^  by  asserting 
that  unfortunately  he  made  the  hole  too  big,  or  too  little,  too 
much  on  this  side,  or  too  much  on  that,  or  by  offering  some  other 
equally  wise  excuse. 

Lastly,  there  were  the  political  and  moral  considera- 
tions involved  in  compulsory  vaccination — the  first 
attempt  in  England  to  confer  on  a  medical  prescription 
the  force  of  law — 

Surely,  a  wise  Government  may  perceive  that  there  are  greater 
evils  than  the  occasional  outbreak  of  an  epidemic.  The  systematic 
violation  of  human  rights  and  natural  affections,  the  uprooting  from 
the  human  breast  of  feelings  of  self-reliance,  a  state  religion  in 
physic,  coercion  which  may  well  be  regarded  as  odious  persecution, 
the  belief  of  the  poor  that  what  they  hold  dearest  is  sacrificed  to 
the  selfish  prejudices  of  the  rich— any  one  of  these  is  far  worse  than 
a  pestilence. 

Cannot  they  who  believe  in  Vaccination  protect  themselves? 
Nobody  seeks  to  hinder  them ;  nobody  presumes  to  dispute  their 
right  to  adopt  any  medical  practice,  however  questionable  it  may 


508  VACCINATION. 


be.  Why  cannot  they  act  with  like  forbearance  to  others  ?  Surely, 
if  freedom  be  more  than  a  name,  it  implies  the  right  of  the  free- 
man to  reject  not  only  that  which  other  men  may  choose  to  regard 
as  evil,  but  even  that  which  they  may  combine  to  urge  upon  him 
as  good.  .  .  . 

How  absurd  that  an  attempt  should  be  made  to  visit  with  punish- 
ment the  want  of  belief  in  a  scientific,  or  rather  unscientific,  dogma ! 
How  absurd  to  pretend  to  the  possession  of  a  prophylactic  of  such 
unquestionable  potency  that  its  acceptance  requires  the  threat  of 
force  !  In  their  anxiety  to  coerce  others,  compulsory  vaccinators 
demonstrate  their  own  defect  of  faith  in  the  prescription  which  they 
assert  affords  complete  security  from  Smallpox. 

As  observed,  the  service  of  Mr.  Gibbs  is  entitled  to 
special  commemoration,  because  it  was  the  first  attempt 
to  put  the  arguments  against  vaccination  into  systematic 
shape.  He  demonstrated  the  quackery  of  the  practice, 
and  the  fallacies  wherewith  it  was  defended  ;  and  de- 
nounced the  tyranny  of  the  legislation  that  would  com- 
pel those  who  recognised  the  imposture  to  submit  to  it. 
The  service  thus  rendered  by  Mr.  Gibbs  constituted  a 
ground  of  vantage  for  further  operations  :  those  who  had 
to  contend  against  the  delusion  had  their  hands  strength- 
ened, and  their  power  of  assault  magnified,  by  what  he 
was  favoured  to  accomplish. 

JOHN  GIBBS  was  born  at  Enniscorthy,  County  Wexford, 
on  25th  May,  1811.  Owing  to  the  unsettled  life  of  his 
father  as  Captain  of  the  Royal  Cork  Volunteers,  his  edu- 
cation was  desultory — at  various  schools,  and  under 
various  masters.  Sagacious,  bright,  earnest,  and  inde- 
pendent, he  early  manifested  a  passion  for  such  things  as 
made  for  human  welfare,  and  improvement.  Abstin- 
ence from  alcohol,  in  connection  with  Father  Mathew's 
mission,  had  in  him  an  enthusiastic  advocate.  A  book 
by  Captain  Claridge  on  the  water  cure  excited  his  in- 
terest, and  led  to  the  formation  of  the  Enniscorthy 
Hydropathic  Society.  Anxious  to  master  the  mysteries 
of  this  new  treatment  of  disease,  he  set  out  for  Silesia  in 
1843,  and  placed  himself  under  the  instruction  of  Priess- 
nitz,  remaining  with  him  as  a  chosen  disciple  until  1847,. 
when  he  left  with  a  certificate  of  competency. 


JOHN  GIBBS'S  LETTER— 1855.  509 

Whilst  acquiring  his  arfc  with  Priessnitz,  he  communi- 
cated his  experiences  to  his  Enniscorthy  friends,  who 
published  them  in  the  Wexford  newspapers,  a  selection 
from  which  was  reproduced  as  Letters  from  Orcefenberg, 
in  1847.  A  passage  in  one  of  these  letters,  dated  27th 
November,  1844,  indicates  the  manner  in  which  his  atten- 
tion was  drawn  to  smallpox — 

Another  case  of  Smallpox  has  just  been  treated  by  Priessnitz. 
The  patient  is  the  daughter  of  a  peasant  in  the  neighbourhood,  and 
is  about  twenty  years  old.  She  was  confined  for  eight  days,  and 
was  most  profusely  covered  with  the  eruption.  An  Italian  physi- 
cian said  that  he  never  saw  the  symptoms  come  out  better.  She 
had  at  first  the  usual  treatment — wet  sheets,  wet  rubbings,  and 
tepid  baths ;  and,  after  the  eruption  appeared,  three  wet  sheets  and 
three  tepid  baths  daily.  She  will  not  have  the  slightest  mark. 
Under  the  water  cure  Smallpox  appears  to  be  deprived  of  half  its 
terrors ;  as  far  as  my  observation  extends,  it  neither  robs  man  of 
life,  nor  women  of  beauty. 

On  his  return,  he  assisted  Dr.  Lovell  in  opening  a 
hydropathic  establishment  at  Barking,  Essex  ;  and,  in 
1848,  he  undertook  the  medical  superintendence  of  the 
Grande  Chartreuse  in  Piedmont.  There  he  met  Miss 
Anna  Skelton,  to  whom  he  was  married,  at  Nice,  in  1849. 
Ultimately  he  made  his  home  at  St.  Leonards,  Sussex. 
The  passage  of  the  Compulsory  Vaccination  Act,  in  1853, 
led  him  to  publish  a  pamphlet,  Our  Medical  Liberties, 
1854,  which  excited  the  attention  and  won  the  approval 
of  many  thoughtful  people.  At  the  suggestion  of  Mr. 
Thomas  Baker,  he  constructed  a  letter  from  the  substance 
of  the  pamphlet,  and  addressed  it  to  the  President  of  the 
Board  of  Health,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  was  issued  as 
a  parliamentary  paper.  The  more  vehement  controversy 
which  sprang  up  in  recent  years  when  the  Vaccination 
Act  was  tightened,  found  Mr.  Gibbs  in  health  too  feeble 
for  active  exertion.  After  his  wife's  death,  he  retired  to 
Jersey  to  be  near  his  sister,  Mrs.  General  Lane,  in  whose 
house  he  died  in  the  winter  of  1875. 


510  VACCINATION. 


CHAPTER   XL. 

SIMON'S  DEFENCE  AND  HAMERNIK's  JUDGMENT. 

AN  attack  on  Vaccination  like  that  delivered  by  John 
Gibbs  had  to  be  met,  and  Mr.  John  Simon,  Medical  Officer 
to  the  Board  of  Health,  was  selected  for  the  purpose. 
The  answer  appeared  in  1857  in  a  quarto  blue-book  en- 
titled Papers  relating  to  the  History  and  Practice  of 
Vaccination*  83  pages  consisting  of  a  defence  of  Vacci- 
nation, and  188  pages  of  illustrative  and  corroborative 
documents.  Oddly  enough  the  treatise  of  Mr.  Gibb  is 
never  once  mentioned,  whilst  the  order  of  defence  is 
obviously  marshalled  in  front  of  his  positions.  The 
reason  for  this  reserve  was  double :  first,  it  was  con- 
sidered unadvisable  to  magnify  or  advertise  so  dangerous 
an  antagonist ;  and  second,  it  is  considered  unprofessional 
to  discuss  a  medical  question  with  one  who  is  not  in 
medical  orders. 

In  reviewing  Mr.  Simon's  defence  we  are  constantly 
reminded  of  Mill's  observation,  that  a  doctrine  is  never 
truly  judged  until  it  is  judged  in  its  best  form;  and  of 
Coleridge's  caution,  that  an  adversary's  bad  arguments 
are  no  evidence  of  the  goodness  of  our  own.  It  lay  in 
the  nature  of  things  that  many  absurd  and  trumpery 
objections  should  be  advanced  against  vaccination,  but  to 
cite  and  sneer  at  them  was  neither  to  appreciate  nor  to 
refute  the  objections  that  were  valid.  Had  Simon  been 
less  scornful  and  less  loftily  disposed,  condescending  to 
deal  with  his  antagonist  verbatim,  he  might  have  proved 
no  more  successful,  but  he  would  have  had  at  least  the 
praise  of  judicial  intention. 

After  the  custom  of  the  eulogists  of  vaccination,  Mr. 
Simon  opened  with  a  chapter  on  "  Smallpox  before  the 

*  Papers  relating  to  the  History  and  Practice  of  Vaccination.  Ad- 
dressed to  the  President  of  the  General  Board  of  Health,  and  presented 
to  both  Houses  of  Parliament  by  command  of  Her  Majesty.  London, 
1857.  Pp.  Ixxxiii.  and  188. 


SIMON'S  DEFENCE.  511 


Discovery  of  Vaccination,"  consisting  of  terrible  tales  of 
the  ravages  of  the  disease  among  Mexicans,  Indians, 
Greenlanders,  Icelanders,  Siberians,  Hottentots,  etc.,  as  if 
disbelievers  in  vaccination  were  under  any  obligation  to 
dispute  them.  It  is  not  denied  that  smallpox  may  be  a 
deadly  epidemic :  the  contention  is  that  vaccination 
would  not  abate  its  deadliness.  At  the  same  time,  when 
terrible  tales  are  told  of  the  devastations  of  smallpox,  it 
is  but  fair  to  press  for  proofs  of  their  authenticity. 
Travellers  and  historians  occasionally  prefer  the  excite- 
ment of  wonder  to  adherence  to  matter-of-fact.  When, 
for  instance,  Mr.  Simon  gravely  relates  that  "  in  Mexico 
3J  millions  were  suddenly  smitten  down,  leaving  none 
to  bury  them,"  it  is  permissible  to  inquire  who  was 
responsible  for  the  Mexican  census  in  the  days  of  Cortez, 
and  who  counted  the  unburied  dead  ?  Further,  it  is  idle 
to  attach  importance  to  isolated  statements  about  small- 
pox, as  if  smallpox  were  an  independent  destroyer  of 
mankind.  It  is  a  member  of  a  group  of  destroyers,  and 
its  activity  is  usually  coincident  with  a  correspondent 
dormancy  among  its  associates.  Until  the  complete  vital 
statistics  of  a  community  are  in  evidence,  it  is  vain  to 
assert  whom  smallpox  present  has  slain,  or  absent  has 
saved.  It  is  the  prevalence  of  death,  and  not  the  mode 
of  death,  that  is  the  critical  question. 

Again,  when  the  familiar  list  of  great  folk  who  died  of 
smallpox  in  Europe  in  the  17th  and  18th  centuries  is  run 
over,  the  remark  occurs,  that  considering  the  habits  and 
habitations  of  the  said  great  folk,  their  fate  was  in  nowise 
surprising.  Those  who  believe  that  smallpox  is  generated 
in  unwholesome  conditions  of  life  are  not  to  be  con- 
founded by  facts  that  illustrate  their  contention.  And 
the  like  is  to  be  said  of  the  equally  familiar  tale  of 
London  smallpox.  It  was  to  be  expected  that  citizens 
housed  and  fed  as  Londoners  were  housed  and  fed  should 
have  been  plagued  with  smallpox  and  its  congeners. 
What  is  denied  is  that  vaccination  could  have  saved 
them  from  smallpox,  or  reduced  their  death-rate,  their 
conditions  of  life  remaining  the  same. 


512  VACCINATION. 


The  extravagant  exhibition  of  the  horrors  of  smallpox 
is  the  customary  preliminary  to  the  presentation  of 
Jenner  as  the  saviour  from  them ;  and  the  part  of  show- 
man in  this  respect  was  fulfilled  with  more  than  ordinary 
abandon  by  Simon,  who  thus  depicted  the  situation  and 
the  rescue — 

Medicine  baffled  and  helpless  !  For  millions  of  our  race  in  after 
times  the  continued  raging  of  that  pitiless  plague !  A  drearier 
picture  could  scarcely  have  saddened  mankind. 

That  this  despair  was  not  lasting  is  due  to  the  genius  of  an 
English  surgeon ;  and  the  close  of  the  18th  Century,  which  had 
much  to  darken  it,  will  be  remembered  till  the  end  of  human 
history  for  the  greatest  physical  good  ever  yet  given  by  science  to 
the  world. 

Then  followed  the  Jennerian  legend,  related  in  highly 
fabulous  form  with  sundry  extensions  from  Simon's 
private  fancy.  It  is  sufficient  to  reassert  that  Jenner  did 
not  introduce  cowpox.  On  the  contrary,  he  rejected 
cowpox  for  horsegrease  cowpox ;  and  such  was  his  pre- 
scription because  he  knew  from  the  evidence  of  his 
neighbourhood  that  cowpox  afforded  no  protection  from 
smallpox.  It  is  true  that  when  Pearson  discredited  horse- 
grease  cowpox,  and  recommended  cowpox,  Jenner  dropped 
his  prescription,  and  put  himself  forward  as  the  dis- 
coverer of  cowpox ;  but  it  is  also  true  that  in  subsequent 
years  he  resumed  his  original  position,  and  indeed  dis- 
pensed with  the  cow  altogether,  and,  like  Sacco  of  Milan 
and  De  Carro  of  Vienna,  used  and  diffused  horsegrease 
or  horsepox  neat,  describing  the  equine  virus  as  "the 
true  and  genuine  life-preserving  fluid."  Of  all  this, 
however,  Simon  was  either  ignorant,  or  preferred  to  say 
nothing.  He,  too,  dropped  cowpox  as  a  disease  of  the 
cow.  Referring  to  a  conjecture  by  Jenner  that  cowpox 
was  "  smallpox  in  a  milder  form,"  he  maintained  that  the 
conjecture  had  been  verified  by  Gassner  in  1801 ;  by 
Thiele  in  1836 ;  by  Ceely  in  1839 ;  and  commercially  by 
Badcock  of  Brighton  in  1840.  Again  and  again  Badcock 
derived  fresh  stocks  of  vaccine  virus  from  cows  arti- 
ficially infected  with  smallpox ;  having  vaccinated  with 


SIMON'S  DEFENCE.  513 

such  vi  us  more  than  14,000  persons,  and  having  fur- 
nished mpplies  of  it  to  more  than  400  medical  prac- 
titioner s — 

It  has  been  made  matter  of  almost  familiar  experiment  that  the 
infection  of  Smallpox  may,  by  inoculation,  be  communicated  from 
Man  to  Cow ;  that  its  result  is  an  eruption  of  vesicles  presenting 
the  physical  characters  of  Cowpox ;  that  the  lymph  from  these 
vesicles,  if  implanted  in  the  skin  of  the  human  subject,  produces 
the  ordinary  local  phenomena  of  Vaccination ;  that  the  person  so 
vaccinated  diffuses  no  atmospheric  infection  ;  that  the  lymph  gener- 
ated by  him  may  be  transferred,  with  reproductive  powers,  to 
other  unprotected  persons  ;  and  that,  on  the  conclusion  of  this  arti- 
ficial disorder,  neither  renewed,  Vaccination,  nor  inoculation  with 
Smallpox,  nor  the  closest  contact  and  cohabitation  with  smallpox 
patients,  will  occasion  him  to  betray  any  remnant  of  susceptibility 
to  infection.  (P.  xiv.) 

Thus  were  the  discredited  claims  of  Jenner  revived 
and  reasserted  for  a  new  variety  of  virus — for  smallpox 
inoculated  on  the  cow !  Even  revaccination  was  pro- 
nounced impossible,  and  logically ;  for  revaccination 
implies  susceptibility  to  infection.  It  was  idle,  however, 
to  shelter  this  new  development  under  Jenner's  authority. 
When  Jenner  said  that  cowpox  was  smallpox  in  milder 
form,  he  meant  in  process  the  reverse  of  Simon's  inter- 
pretation. He  meant  that  smallpox  came  to  man  from 
the  horse  through  the  cow ;  and  not  that  the  cow  con- 
tracted smallpox  from  man.  Showing  his  nephew  a 
horse  with  greasy  heels,  he  said,  "  There  is  the  source  of 
smallpox."*  When  the  stock  of  cowpox  for  vaccination 
ran  low,  Jenner  feared  it  might  be  difficult  to  enlarge 
the  supply.  Why  ?  Because  farmers  exercised  such 
precaution,  since  they  learnt  that  cowpox  was  derived 
from  horsegrease,  that  the  disease  among  cows  had 
become  well  nigh  extinct.  Possibly  Jenner  was  mistaken: 
possibly  cowpox  originated  in  smallpox :  but  what  Simon 
described  as  "settled"  in  1857  exists  to  this  day  in 
vehement  dispute.  Simon's  prescription  was  practical^ 
a  fresh  discovery — a  new  departure  in  vaccination.  It 

*  Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  vol.  i.,  p.  135. 

33 


VACCINATION. 


recalls  the  practice  of  the  variolators  who  took  virus 
for  timid  patients  from  healthy  subjects  inoculated  with 
mild  smallpox ;  the  supposition  being  that  the  virulence 
of  the  mild  pox  was  meliorated  in  them,  they  playing  the 
part  that  Ceely  and  Badcock  assigned  to  the  cow.  Thus 
when  Dirnsdale  variolated  the  Empress  Catharine,  it  was 
with  smallpox  mitigated  in  the  person  of  a  strong  young 
man.  Had  Dimsdale  substituted  a  cow  for  a  man,  he 
would  not  only  have  anticipated  Jenner,  but  the  later 
revelation  and  practice  of  Ceely  and  Badcock — "the 
greatest  physical  good  ever  given  by  science  to  the 
world." 

Simon  next  went  on  to  describe  "  Smallpox  since  the 
Use  of  Vaccination,"  concerning  which  these  observations 
may  suffice — 

1st — Smallpox  was  abating  over  Europe  prior  to  the 
introduction  of  vaccination,  notwithstanding  the  stimu- 
lation of  the  disease  by  variolation. 

2nd — The  discredit  cast  upon  variolation  by  vaccina- 
tion threw  smallpox  out  of  culture,  and  to  that  extent 
abated  smallpox. 

3rd — It  was  absurd  to  ascribe  the  decline  of  smallpox 
to  vaccination  in  countries  where  only  a  part  of  the 
people  were  vaccinated ;  and  usually,  as  in  England,  a 
part  least  liable  to  smallpox. 

These  considerations,  sufficiently  developed  in  preced- 
ing chapters,  nullify  the  conclusion,  supported  by  elaborate 
statistical  tables,  that  vaccination  was  the  cause  of  the 
decline  in  smallpox.  The  asserted  cause  was  incommen- 
surate with  the  effect. 

Another  remark  remains,  namely,  that  all  vaccination 
was  taken  by  Simon  for  effective  vaccination,  except 
where  smallpox  followed,  and  then  suspicion  was  thrown 
on  the  virus  or  the  time  and  mode  of  its  administration. 
But  under  his  own  definition  of  virus,  namely,  small- 
pox inoculated  on  the  cow,  the  greater  part,  if  not  the 
whole,  of  the  vaccinations  accomplished  were  with  virus 
altogether  diverse — with  cowpox  that  owed  nothing  to 
smallpox,  with  equine  cowpox,  with  horsepox,  and  much 


SIMON'S  DEFENCE.  515 


else  known  only  to  omniscience.  Yet  it  was  to  these 
heterogeneous  inoculations,  modified  inscrutably  in  transit 
from  patient  to  patient,  that  the  subsidence  of  smallpox 
was  attributed  !  In  a  word,  whatever  was  anywhere  or 
by  anybody  called  vaccination,  served,  according  to 
Simon,  to  exterminate  smallpox.  Where  shall  we  find 
an  epithet  for  such  crass  assurance,  with  neither  science 
or  common-sense  to  lend  it  the  gloss  of  probability ! 

The  succeeding  chapter,  "  Alleged  Drawbacks  from  the 
Advantages  of  Vaccination,  and  alleged  Dangers  of  its 
Practice,"  was  as  abusive  as  unfair.  It  is  admitted  that 
much  nonsense  has  been  written  against  vaccination,  and, 
if  the  pot  may  call  the  kettle  black,  much  more  nonsense 
has  been  circulated  in  its  favour.  Vaccination  was 
recommended  for  the  improvement  of  health  and  the 
complexion,  for  the  cure  of  skin  diseases,  for  the  Plague, 
for  whooping-cough,  for  rot  in  sheep,  and  for  distemper 
in  dogs — Jenner  himself  vaccinating  the  King's  stag- 
hounds.  But  to  what  purpose  such  recrimination  ?  The 
prime  charge  against  vaccination  is,  that  it  is  a  disease 
which  neither  averts  or  mitigates  smallpox;  and  the 
second  is,  that  it  frequently  excites  and  sometimes  con- 
veys other  diseases. 

Simon  waxed  eloquent  on  the  absurdity  of  referring 
the  origin  of  certain  scrofulous  affections  to  vaccination, 
whilst  describing  such  affections  as  notorious  sequences 
of  smallpox ;  but  where  was  the  absurdity  if  vaccination 
was  (as  he  held)  a  mild  form  of  smallpox  ? — the  mild 
disease  serving  equally  as  a  ferment  or  excitant  of 
evil  humours.  In  his  furious  contempt  he  forgot  his 
science  and  logic,  and  implicitly  conceded  all  for  which 
rational  adversaries  of  vaccination  contended. 

In  the  same  reckless  vein  he  asked,  "  Is  properly  per- 
formed vaccination  an  absolutely  inoffensive  proceeding?" 
and  answered — 

Not  at  all,  nor  does  it  pretend  to  be  so.  The  Very  meaning  of 
the  thing  is,  that  it  shall  artificially  and  designedly  produce  a 
transient  and  trifling  indisposition  ;  that  for  some  days  the  infant 
shall  be  uncomfortable  with  a  sore  arm  and  a  slight  irritation  of 


•516  VACCINATION. 

the  adjacent  axillary  glands,  and  a  perceptible  amount  of  general 
feverishness.  (P.  Ix.) 

Here  we  agree,  and  here  disagree — agree  as  to  the  dis- 
ease, disagree  as  to  the  determination  of  its  limits.  First, 
the  virus  is  in  quality  indefinite ;  and  second,  the  reci- 
pient of  the  virus  is  a  complex  of  qualities  indefinite ; 
so  that,  as  Dr.  Mead  observed,  when  smallpox  was  used 
for  inoculation,  "  it  is  more  material  into  what  kind  of 
body  it  be  infused,  than  out  of  what  it  is  taken."  As 
pathologists  freely  allow,  it  is  impossible  to  predicate  the 
transformations  of  organic  poisons  in  the  animal  frame. 
A  vigorous  infant  may  throw  off  the  virus,  designated 
vaccine,  and  suffer  no  apparent  harm,  but  the  same  virus 
may  operate  very  differently  in  contact  with  debility  and 
disease ;  so  that,  in  the  words  of  James,  we  have  to  say, 
"  Behold  how  great  a  matter  a  little  fire  kindleth  ! "  The 
conditions  of  vaccination  are  essentially  those  of  hazard ; 
the  issues  are  those  of  a  game  of  chance ;  the  result  at 
the  best  being  a  risk  for  naught. 

Simon,  too,  was  positive  as  to  the  impossibility  of  the 
invaccination  of  syphilis — a  fact  no  longer  in  question, 
save  as  to  the  degree  of  frequency.  And  here,  also,  in  his 
recklessness  he  forgot  consistency,  saying — 

When  a  child  is  born  with  the  heritage  of  syphilis  (a  very  fre- 
quent incident,  if  its  parents  have  been  suffering  from  that  infec- 
tion) the  characteristic  symptoms  do  not  appear  till  some  weeks 
after  birth  ;  and  then  the  scandal  discloses  itself.  (P.  Ixvi.) 

Just  so  ;  and  before  disclosure  the  child  is  vaccinated,  and 
serving  as  vaccinifer,  the  latent  syphilis  is  inoculated  and 
diffused. 

Vaccination,  according  to  Simon,  was  easy — "  The  mere 
manual  trick  is  learnt  from  a  minute's  teaching  and  an 
hour's  practice."  Difficulty  begins  in  the  selection  of 
proper  subjects  for  the  rite,  for  which  none  are  qualified, 
save  the  healthy;  and  for  the  recognition  of  health  a 
trained  eye  is  wanted — 

If  sickly  children  are  vaccinated,  children  breeding  other  dis- 
orders, children  having  skin  disease,  children  teething  and  the  like, 
the  results  must  be  at  least  unsatisfactory,  and  possibly  dangerous. 
(P.  Ixii.) 


SIMON'S  DEFENCE.  517 


If  such  children  are  exempted  from  vaccination,  how 
can  vaccination  ever  approach  universality  ?  A.nd  when 
universal  vaccination  is  effected, as  it  is  frequently  effected, 
how  can  it  fail  to  be  attended  with  "  results,  at  least  un- 
satisfactory, and  possibly  dangerous  "  ? 

More  difficult  than  the  selection  of  subjects  is  the  selec- 
tion of  virus  for  the  rite ;  and  the  manifold  dangers  and 
the  requisite  precautions  were  thus  specified — 

Especially  as  regards  the  quality  of  vaccine  lymph,  the  careless 
or  uneducated  vaccinator  is  using  a  dangerous  weapon.  It  is  only 
during  part  of  the  course  of  a  vaccine  vesicle  that  its  lymph  is  suit- 
able for  further  vaccinations :  for  after  a  given  moment,  at  which 
the  contents  of  the  vesicle  possess  their  maximum  of  simple  con- 
tagiousness, they  tend  more  and  more  toward  the  quality  of  com- 
mon inflammatory  products ;  and  matter  now  taken  from  the 
vesicle  is  no  longer  the  simple  agent  of  a  specific  infection,  but  has 
less  efficiency  for  its  real  purpose,  and  is  specially  able  to  produce 
other  undesired  results. 

A  danger  of  somewhat  similar  kind  is  that  of  taking  lymph  from 
vesicles  which  already  have  been  accidentally  ruptured,  or  where 
from  any  other  cause,  local  or  constitutional,  their  specific  fluid  is 
likely  to  have  been  modified  by  common  irritative  processes. 

The  danger  of  taking  matter  from  irritated  vesicles,  and  from 
vesicles  at  too  advanced  a  period  of  their  course,  is  one  which  cir- 
cumstances render  frequent ;  and  there  is  reason  to  believe  that, 
in  at  least  a  very  large  proportion  of  those  cases  where  abnormal 
effects  have  resulted  from  so-called  vaccination,  it  has  been  the  em- 
ployment of  this  ambiguous  irritative  matter  which  has  occasioned 
the  mischief  and  scandal. 

Still  more  critical  changes  occur  in  lymph  when  removed  from 
the  body,  unless  appropriate  means  be  taken  to  preserve  it ;  for, 
under  the  influence  of  air  and  moisture,  it  tends,  like  other  dead 
organic  matter,  to  putrid  decomposition ;  and  inoculation  with  it, 
when  thus  changing,  can  hardly  be  more  useful  or  less  dangerous 
than  a  casual  scratch  inflicted  in  the  dissecting  room.  (P.  Ixii.) 

No  one  who  considers  this  limitation  of  vaccination  to 
the  healthy,  and  these  prescriptions  as  to  the  collection 
and  exhibition  of  "lymph,"  can  fail  to  see  that  the  charges 
of  injury  and  death  brought  against  the  common  prac- 
tice were  allowed  and  accounted  for — were,  indeed,  the 
unavoidable  associates  of  that  practice.  Vaccination,  as 
described  by  Simon,  was  an  ideal  operation — imprac- 
ticable on  any  ordinary  terms.  His  contention  and  his 


518  VACCINATION. 


approbation  were  reserved  for  "  properly-performed  vac- 
cination "  on  a  healthy  child,  with  innocuous  virus,  the 
proof  of  each  condition  being  discovered  in  the  result. 
If  unsatisfactory  or  injurious,  or  deadly,  then  the  vacci- 
nation could  not  have  been  "  properly  performed  " — 
either  the  child  was  unhealthy,  or  the  virus  was  at  fault. 

Nor  can  we  wonder  that  the  people, having  experience  of 
the  uselessness  and  misery  of  the  virulent  practice  should, 
undismayed  by  the  terror  of  smallpox,  decline  its  observ- 
ance; nor  that  those  who  made  gain  thereby  should, 
distrusting  their  power  to  prevail  by  reason,  invoke  legis- 
lation to  enforce  the  imposture,  calling  in  the  policeman 
to  support  the  doctor,  as  of  old  the  soldier  supported  the 
priest. 

Still  further  to  sustain  his  case,  Simon  addressed  the 
following  Circular  of  Questions  to  upwards  of  500  medi- 
cal men — 

I. — Have  you  any  doubt  that  successful  Vaccination  confers  on 
persons  subject  to  its  influence  a  very  large  exemption  from  attacks 
of  Smallpox,  and  almost  absolute  security  against  death  by  that 
disease  ? 

II. — Have  you  any  reason  to  believe  or  suspect  that  vaccinated 
persons,  in  being  rendered  less  susceptible  of  Smaltyox,  become 
more  susceptible  of  any  other  infective  disease,  or  of  phthisis;  or 
that  their  health  is  in  any  other  way  disadvantageous^  affected  ? 

III. — Have  you  any  reason  to  believe  or  suspect  that  lymph, 
from  a  true  Jennerian  vesicle,  has  ever  been  a  vehicle  of  syphilitic, 
scrofulous,  or  other  constitutional  infection  to  the  vaccinated  per- 
son; or  that  unintentional  inoculation  with  some  other  disease, 
instead  of  the  proposed  Vaccination,  has  occurred  in  the  hands  of 
a  duly  educated  medical  practitioner? 

IV. — Do  you  (assuming  due  provisions  to  exist  for  a  skilful 
performance  of  the  operation)  recommend  that,  except  for  special 
reasons  in  individual  cases,  Vaccination  should  be  universally 
performed  at  early  periods  of  life  ? 

Whilst  these  questions  were  framed  to  draw  the 
answers  required,  yet,  however  modified,  the  tenor  of 
the  returns  would  have  been  much  the  same.  We  might 
confidently  predict  uniform  replies,  if  a  circular  were 
addressed  to  500  clergymen  soliciting  their  judgment  as 
to  the  disendowment  of  the  Church,  to  500  Nonconfor- 


HAMERNIK'S  JUDGMENT.  519 

mist  divines  as  to  the  benefit  of  hearing  sermons,  to  500 
military  men  as  to  the  expediency  of  an  imminent  war, 
to  500  naval  officers  as  to  an  enlargement  of  the  navy,  or 
to  500  publicans  as  to  the  justice  of  local  option.  Nor 
is  there  sense  in  attributing  value  to  testimony  to  be  had 
on  demand  by  the  yard.  It  is  brought  forth  as  of  course, 
and  to  expect  otherwise  is  to  expect  what  is  contrary  to 
nature. 

It  will  be  said,  {:  Do  you  really  mean  that  medical  men 
defend  vaccination  because  it  pays  ?"  In  no  other  sense, 
I  reply,  than  as  clergymen  or  publicans  defend  their 
vested  interests.  Medical  men  among  themselves  make 
no  secret  of  their  pecuniary  interest  in  vaccination,  as 
any  one  may  see  who  reads  their  journals ;  and  Simon's 
advocacy  culminated  in  a  demand  for  more  liberal  pay, 
as  the  only  guarantee  for  "  properly-performed  vaccina- 
tion." 

We  may  view  the  matter  in  another  light.  Suppose 
a  circular  had  been  addressed  to  500  medical  men  tif  ty 
years  ago,  as  to  the  utility  of  bleeding,  or  blistering,  or 
salivation,  would  not  the  tenor  of  the  answers  have  been 
equally  uniform  with  Simon's  in  favour  of  vaccination  ? 
Where  are  these  practices  now  ?  But  suppose  any  one 
of  them  had  obtained  legislative  sanction  and  endow- 
ment, can  we  doubt  that  it  would  have  survived  to  this 
day,  certified  as  salutary  and  harmless  by  the  gross  of 
the  medical  profession  ?  Let  us  clear  our  minds  of  cant. 
The  assumption  that  men's  convictions  (I  except  the 
moral  aristocracy)  are  not  controlled  by  their  selfish  in- 
terests (often  enough  the  reverse  of  their  true  ones)  is 
cant. 

Among  those  interrogated  was  Dr.  Joseph  Hamernik 
of  Prague,  whose  developed  answers  form  a  paper  which, 
by  resaon  of  the  independence,  acumen  and  philosophy 
displayed,  constitutes  the  distinction  of  Simon's  collec- 
tion of  documents. 

First,  Hamernik  inquired  whether  cowpox  and  small- 
pox had  any  relation  to  each  other,  deciding  that  they 
were  diverse  and  independent  diseases.  Vaccinated 


520  VACCINATION. 


persons  may  be  attacked  with  smallpox  during  the  devel- 
opment of  the  cowpox  vesicle,  or  a  few  days  after  the 
drying-up  of  the  same.  When  inoculation  is  made  with 
a  mixture  of  cowpox  and  smallpox,  there  ensue  a  vaccine 
vesicle  on  the  site  of  the  puncture  and  a  variolous  erup- 
tion over  the  body.  In  fact,  it  is  not  uncommon  to  find 
cowpox  and  smallpox  flourishing  simultaneously  on  the 
same  individual.  Under  some  conditions,  the  one  disease 
appears  to  stifle  the  other.  Thus  a  powerful  epidemic  of 
smallpox  will  prevent  the  development  of  cowpox,  illus- 
trating the  Hippocratic  aphorism,  Duobus  doloribus 
simul  obortis — vehementior  obscurat  alterum,  exactly  as 
happens  when  other  diseases  simultaneously  invade  the 
human  organism.  Again,  in  well-marked  epidemics,  cow- 
pox  does  not  protect  from  smallpox,  even  after  repeated 
vaccinations.  Under  stress  of  such  experience,  the  con- 
fidence in  such  vaccination  was  much  shaken  in  England 
during  the  epidemics  of  1825  and  1838.  Vaccination  was 
likewise  found  useless  in  the  epidemics  of  Paris  in  1825 
and  Marseilles  in  1828.  "Nor  can  revaccination  achieve 
what  vaccination  cannot,"  said  Dr.  Brown  of  Musselburgh. 
The  revaccinated  die  of  smallpox  like  other  people,  as  is 
proved  by  the  official  returns  of  the  armies  of  Wurtem- 
burg  and  Prussia — 

Revaccinations  among  civilians  in  Bohemia  are  extremely  rare, 
and  hence  I  am  unable  to  cite  many  cases.  I  only  saw  two  per- 
sons who  had  been  revaccinated  die  at  the  Prague  Hospital — a 
Russian  officer  in  the  guards,  and  a  physician  from  Bremen. 

There  is  no  validity  in  the  statement  that  epidemics  of  Small- 
pox are  arrested  and  made  milder  by  rapid  Vaccination  and  Re- 
vaccination  ;  unless  medical  men  could  test  the  accuracy  of  their 
verdict,  as  lawyers  do,  by  a  new  trial.  Until  they  can  do  so,  we 
must  admit  that  there  are  cases  and  epidemics  of  Smallpox  light 
and  severe.  It  was  so  before  Vaccination  was  heard  of,  and  is 
likely  so  to  continue  longer  than  Vaccination  will  endure. 

Second,  turning  to  the  examination  of  the  characters 
of  smallpox  before  and  after  vaccination,  he  observed — 

If  Vaccination  really  possessed  the  properties  ascribed  to  it,  a 
change  must  long  ere  this  have  taken  place  in  the  character  of 
Smallpox,  both  of  the  sporadic  and  epidemic  kind.  Smallpox  has 


HAMERNIK'S  JUDGMENT.  521 

been  minutely  described  by  pathologists  before  Vaccination  was 
introduced,  and  in  such  a  manner  that  one  would  think  they  had 
seen  the  disease  in  the  wards  of  our  hospitals.  Indeed  the  best 
pathologists  of  our  time,  who  have  paid  special  attention  to  Small- 
pox, agree  that  they  could  add  nothing  to  the  descriptions  of  Rhazes 
(who  died  at  Bagdad  A.D.  980),  of  Sydenham,  1675,  of  Kichard 
Mead,  1754,  and  of  John  Huxham,  1764.  Mead  admits  a  light  and 
severe  Smallpox,  and  Huxham  observed  such  slight  epidemics  that 
no  fever  appeared  in  the  whole  course  of  the  disease.  At  present, 
pathologists  would  hardly  class  such  cases  with  Variola  Vera;  they 
would,  perhaps,  call  them  Variola  Modificata;  or  let  them  figure 
in  their  tables  as  Varioloid  and  proofs  of  the  good  results  of  Vacci- 
nation. 

It  may  be  that  in  former  centuries  Smallpox  assumed  more  fre- 
quently the  malignant  or  hffimorrhagic  type ;  but  this  circumstance 
can  in  nowise  be  explained  by  the  intervention  of  Vaccination. 
Even  as  many  individuals  of  the  animal  and  vegetable  kingdoms 
have  disappeared,  so  also  have  great  changes  taken  place  in  the 
number  and  severity  of  diseases.  When  scurvy,  putrid  fevers, 
dysentery,  etc.,  were  commoner,  Smallpox  was  likely  to  be  more 
malignant :  so  much  was  due  to  the  prevalent  poverty  and  scarcity 
throughout  Europe.  Pauperism,  want  and  hunger,  are  always 
characterised  by  a  proportionate  frequency,  gravity  and  diifusion 
of  various  diseases. 

Then,  too,  much  of  the  mortality  of  smallpox  in  former 
times  was  attributable  to  maltreatment ;  and  Hamernik 
illustrated  what  was  possible  under  good  treatment,  by 
adducing  his  own  experience  when  the  smallpox  wards 
in  Prague  were  under  his  care.  "The  recoveries  were 
very  speedy,  and  the  deaths  less  than  five  per  cent." 

Third,  he  held  that  the  doctrine  of  Jenner  was  opposed 
to  recognised  pathological  principles.  Observation  has 
taught  us  that  two  severe  diseases  cannot  affect  an  indi- 
vidual at  the  same  time.  Thus  typhus  cannot  go  on  with 
scarlet  fever  or  smallpox,  nor  tuberculous  with  cancer- 
pus  disease.  The  rule,  however,  only  holds  good  with  dis- 
eases that  affect  the  whole  organism.  It  does  not  apply 
to  trifling  or  local  affections,  to  which  latter  category 
cowpox  belongs.  The  best  marked  diseases  pursue  their 
course  contemporaneously  with  cow-pox  ;  and  the  scars  of 
the  punctures  through  which  it  has  been  inoculated  have 
no  more  influence  in  averting  smallpox  than  any  similar 
scars  resulting  from  analogous  cutaneous  lesion — 


5-2  VACCINATION. 


I  consider  it  as  a  general  pathological  law  that  morbid  actions 
which  have  entirely  run  their  course  can  have  absolutely  no  influ- 
ence whatever  upon  the  subsequent  pathological  reactions  of  the 
individual.  Hence  it  is  possible  to  suffer  repeatedly  from  smallpox, 
scarlet  fever,  typhus,  pneumonia,  tubercular  disease,  etc.  Nay, 
Smallpox  has  been  observed  five  different  times  upon  the  same 
patient.  Keeping  these  incontestable  facts  in  view,  it  becomes  a 
matter  of  indifference  what  was  Jenner's  doctrine  relative  to  Cow- 
pox,  whether  identical  with  Smallpox,  or  whether  antagonistic  to 
Smallpox  or  anything  else.  Nor  can  Variolation  be  advocated,  if 
we  pay  attention  to  the  same  pathological  law.  A  variolous  attack, 
when  once  passed  away,  has  no  mox-e  influence,  as  regards  future 
events,  than  any  other  disease.  The  reason  why  many  escape 
Smallpox  altogether,  why  some  have  it  twice,  why  the  inoculation 
of  the  disease  has  sometimes  no  effect,  or  why  some  can  inhale  its 
effluvia  with  impunity,  is  entirely  concealed  from  us.  As  Cowpox 
is  a  disease  foreign  to  man,  it  is  particularly  for  graziers  that  fur- 
ther investigations  can  be  interesting. 

In  answer  to  the  Second  Question,  whether  vaccinated 
persons,  being  less  susceptible  to  smallpox,  become  more 
susceptible  of  any  other  infective  disease,  or  of  phthisis, 
Hamernik  answered  that  the  interrogation  implied  what, 
for  reasons  given,  he  disputed,  namely,  that  the  vacci- 
nated were  less  liable  to  smallpox — 

The  assumption  is  perfectly  gratuitous.  Epidemics  of  Smallpox 
occur  at  widely  varying  periods,  with  different  degrees  of  intensity, 
prevalence,  and  duration.  The  Vaccinated  and  the  Unvaccinated 
suffer  in  every  epidemic  ;  and  the  influence  of  Vaccination  cannot 
be  determined  from  the  character  and  progress  of  the  disease  in 
individual  cases. 

I  am  aware  that  the  beneficial  influence  of  Vaccination  is  inferred 
from  the  registers  of  public  vaccinators ;  but  I  freely  confess  I  con- 
sider these  books  as  perfectly  valueless  ;  and  I  may  add  that  the  most 
intelligent  of  the  gentlemen  who  keep  them  fully  concur  in  my 
opinion.  In  this  country  we  know  full  well  how  vaccinators  are 
situated;  and  that  little  confidence  can  be  placed  in  them  is  gener- 
ally acknowledged. 

To  the  Third  Question,  whether  syphilitic,  scrofulous, 
and  other  constitutional  affections  are  communicable  in 
vaccination,  Hamernik  answered  with  regret  in  the  affirma- 
tive. It  was  true  that  the  contrary  opinion  was  written 
at  large.  Taupin  testified  that  he  had  taken  virus  from 
children  suffering  from  typhus,  scarlet  fever,  measles, 
smallpox,  itch,  inflammation  of  the  brain,  the  lungs  and 


HAMERNIK'S  JUDGMENT.  523 


the  intestines  ;  from  chorea,  epilepsy,  scrofula,  tubercu- 
losis, and  ring- worm,  and  no  harm  had  resulted  to  the 
vaccinated  ;  and  Launauzy  agrees  with  Taupin,  that  it  is 
mere  prejudice  and  groundless  to  suppose  that  cowpox 
taken  from  unhealthy  children  can  inflict  any  hurt — 

On  tins  head,  it  will  be  sufficient  for  me  to  remark  that  to  arrive 
at  a  knowledge  of  the  amount  of  mischief  such  doctrine  has  brought 
upon  mankind,  it  would  be  necessary  to  learn  how  much  the  pro- 
mulgators  gained  by  their  unlimited  favour  for  Vaccination. 

Professor  Waller,  of  Prague,  has  proved  that  syphilis 
may  be  inoculated  by  means  of  a  patient's  blood  ;  and  as 
blood  is  often  drawn  with  the  virus  of  vaccination,  no 
doubt  can  exist  as  to  the  possibility  of  doing  in  this 
manner  a  vast  amount  of  mischief.  Monteggio  taught  at 
Milan  in  1814,  that  when  a  syphilitic  child  is  vaccinated, 
the  result  is  a  vesicle  containing  both  kinds  of  virus ; 
and  Carioli  expressed  the  same  opinion  in  1821.  Marco- 
lini  relates  that,  on  16th  June,  1814,  ten  children  were 
vaccinated  from  a  syphilitic  infant,  who  died  at  the  end 
of  a  few  months,  and  live  of  the  ten  children  syphilised 
from  her. 

In  answer  to  the  Fourth  Question,  whether  vaccination 
should  be  universally  performed  at  early  periods  of  life  ? 
Hamernik  replied,  that  he  obviously  could  not  recom- 
mend a  practice  which  put  health,  and  even  life  itself,  in 
jeopardy  for  no  certain  advantage.  Any  efficient  exami- 
nation of  virus  was  impracticable.  Vaccinators  may 
set  to  work  with  zeal  and  care,  but  their  energy  soon 
cools,  and  they  settle  into  perfunctory  routine.  Govern- 
ment should  assume  a  passive  attitude  toward  vaccina- 
tion ;  or  if  people  will  be  vaccinated,  something  might  be 
done  to  minimise  the  danger.  If  the  practice  is  assigned 
to  salaried  functionaries,  they  are  sure  to  create  evidence 
to  justify  and  perpetuate  their  official  existence.  Left  to 
common  option — 

Vaccinations  would  every  year  become  fewer,  until  at  last  we 
should  read  with  astonishment  in  old  newspapers  how  much  atten- 
tion was  once  paid  to  the  practice. 


524  VACCINATION. 


Whilst  the  majority  of  Simon's  correspondents  con- 
jured up  arguments  for  vaccination,  their  facts,  apart 
from  their  rhetoric,  conveyed  much  that  was  instructive. 
For  instance,  a  register  was  produced  of  the  deaths  in 
Christ's  Hospital,  London,  for  the  century,  1751-1850. 
The  boys  in  that  charity  boarding-school  numbered 
about  550;  and  in  twenty-five  years,  1751-75,  there  died 
of  smallpox  22,  and  in  twenty-five  years,  1776-1800, 
there  died  9.  In  the  fifty  succeeding  years,  1801-50, 
there  died  1,  and  he  in  1820.  Thereon  we  are  asked  to 
recognise  the  efficacv  of  vaccination  !  But  what  reduced 
the  mortality  from  22  in  1751-75  to  9  in  1776-1800  ? 
And  if  550  boys  in  the  centre  of  London,  in  the  flux  of 
constant  coming  and  going,  escaped  with  so  few  fatalities 
from  smallpox,  what  comes  of  the  asserted  omnipresence 
and  havoc  of  the  disease  in  London  before  the  introduc- 
tion of  vaccination?  Across  the  street  from  Christ's 
Hospital  stands  Newgate,  which,  during  the  same  years, 
was  haunted  with  jail  fever;  which  fever  was  gradually 
suppressed,  and  by  what  charm  ?  Certainly  by  no  rite 
analogous  to  vaccination.  Why,  then,  should  we  be  re- 
quired to  admit  an  agency  in  the  reduction  of  smallpox 
which  played  no  part  in  the  reduction  of  a  cognate  dis- 
ease ?  In  times  when  smallpox  was  frequent  in  Christ's 
Hospital,  about  as  little  regard  was  paid  to  stench  and 
ventilation  as  in  the  prison  over  the  way.  In  later  years 
a  more  wholesome  atmosphere  prevailed,  and  concur- 
rently the  diet  of  the  scholars  was  altered  and  improved 
— changes  in  themselves  as  sufficient  to  account  for  the 
disappearance  of  smallpox  from  the  school  as  for  typhus 
from  the  jail. 

The  like  indifference  to  variations  of  circumstance 
vitiated  throughout  the  generalisations  of  Simon  and  his 
correspondents.  Assuming  that  the  conditions  of  life 
and  the  characters  of  disease  remained  unaltered,  small- 
pox was  treated  as  uninfluenced  by  aught  but  vaccina- 
tion. It  needs  no  words  to  condemn  such  procedure  as 
radically  unsound ;  and  men,  otherwise  sane,  only  persist 
in  it  as  they  persist  in  similar  hallucinations.  Even  the 


SIMON'S  DEFENCE.  525 


matter  of  vaccination  they  left  undefined,  or  differently 
defined.  Whatever  was  called  vaccination  was  taken  for 
vaccination,  and  the  reduction  of  smallpox  ascribed  to  it. 
In  Jenner's  hands  it  was  first  horsegrease  cowpox,  then 
cowpox,  and  lastly  horsepox.  According  to  Simon  true 
vaccination  was  effected  with  smallpox  inoculated  on  the 
cow.  Which,  we  demand,  was  the  virus  that  wrought 
the  numerous  miracles  we  are  summoned  to  believe  ?  Is 
it  indeed  true  that  there  is  nothing  certain  about  vacci- 
nation save  the  vaccinator's  fee  ?  Is  it  that,  as  in  other 
thaumaturgical  performances,  virtue  resides  in  the  per- 
former, described  by  Simon  as  "  the  duly  educated  medi- 
cal practitioner  ? "  Is  it  argued  that  vaccination  is  a 
species  of  incantation,  and  that  it  matters  little  what 
is  the  vehicle  of  the  rite,  its  efficacy  being  dependent  on 
the  credentials  of  the  administrator  ?  Or  that  what  is 
believed  to  be  good  against  smallpox  is  good  against 
smallpox,  the  charm  consisting  in  the  faith  wherewith  it 
is  received  ? 

The  belief  in  vaccination  and  its  proofs  is  much 
akin  to  the  belief  in  witchcraft  and  its  proofs.  To 
argue  about  witchcraft,  and  to  answer  its  proofs,  was  to 
become  a  sort  of  partner  in  the  delusion.  Deliverance 
lay  in  the  unqualified  denial  of  the  imposture ;  and  from 
that  firm  ground  difficulty  was  solved  and  the  inexpli- 
cable disappeared.  As  soon  as  the  position  of  absolute 
disbelief  is  taken  up,  the  plausibilities  in  favour  of  vac- 
cination resolve  themselves  into  the  element  of  phantasy, 
so  powerful  and  yet  so  evanescent.  The  arts  of  its  advo- 
cates then  become  manifest  with  all  the  dodges,  conscious 
and  unconscious,  whereby  the  light  of  truth  is  shut  out, 
and  the  gloom  requisite  for  visions  provided.  The  story 
of  vaccination  is  the  story  of  many  other  impostures 
which  have  bewildered  and  afflicted  mankind,  and  the 
study  of  one  is  the  revelation  of  others. 


526  VACCINATION. 


CHAPTER    XLI 

COMPULSION  INTENSIFIED — 18£1   AND   1867. 

THE  Vaccination  Act  of  1853  imposed  a  forfeit  not  ex- 
ceeding 20s.  on  any  parent  or  guardian  who  failed  to 
have  a  child  vaccinated  within  three  months  of  birth ; 
but  experience  revealed  a  grave  defect  in  the  law.  There 
was  no  provision  for  the  prosecution  of  defaulters ;  and 
those  who  had  no  faith  in  vaccination,  or  accounted  it  a 
nuisance,  enjoyed  immunity  without  serious  annoyance. 
To  meet  this  defect  a  bill  was  introduced  to  Parliament 
in  1861,  providing  that  "the  guardians  or  overseers  of 
any  parish  may  appoint  some  person  to  institute  and  con- 
duct proceedings  for  enforcing  obedience."  The  bill  was 
passed  through  the  House  of  Commons  under  the  care 
of  Mr.  Robert  Lowe,  meeting  with  little  resistance,  and 
with  less  in  the  Lords.  In  vindicating  the  measure,  10th 
July,  1861,  Mr.  Lowe  observed — 

Parliament  in  1853  passed  an  Act  for  Compulsory  Vaccination, 
but  owing  to  a  defect  in  the  provision  of  expenses  for  prosecution, 
it  has  fallen  into  desuetude.  When  the  present  Government  was 
formed  in  1859,  a  clause  was  introduced  to  the  Public  Health  Act 
correcting  the  defect ;  but  under  pressure  of  the  Member  for  Fins- 
bury  [Mr.  Thomas  Duncombe]  I  surrendered  it.  It  has  been  to 
me  a  bitter  reflection  that  I  did  so ;  for  I  am  convinced  that  the 
sacrifice  of  that  clause  has  occasioned  the  loss  of  thousands  of 
lives  in  this  country. 

The  question  is  sometimes  asked,  Why  is  it  that  as- 
sociation with  horses  is  so  prejudicial  to  morality  ?  This 
interrogation  might  be  accompanied  with  another,  namely, 
Why  is  it  that  the  advocacy  of  vaccination  is  so  fre- 
quently associated  with  romance  and  rant  ?  That  public 
vaccination  had  fallen  into  desuetude  was  untrue.  There 
were  fluctuations  from  year  to  year,  but  the  rate  was 
maintained  without  practical  abatement.  That  in  1861 
it  could  be  said  that  thousands  of  lives  had  been  lost 
bec?aise  prosecuting  officers  were  not  provided  in  1859, 


COMPULSION  INTENSIFIED— 1861  AND  1867.          527 

was  romance  and  rant  without  mitigation.     In  England 
and  Wales  there  died  of  smallpox — 


In  1858  6460 

1859  3848 

1860  2749 

1861  1320 


In  1862  1628 

1863  5964 

1864  7684 

1865  6411 


Where  then  were  the  thousands  of  lives  lost  from  the 
formation  of  the  Government  in  1859  to  1861  ?  and 
where  were  the  lives  saved  after  the  enactment  of  the 
vital  clause  ?  But  who  that  knew  Mr.  Robert  Lowe 
could  believe  that  he  was  convinced  that  the  surrender  of 
the  clause  occasioned  the  loss  of  thousands  of  lives,  and 
that  the  loss  was  to  him  a  bitter  reflection  ?  Would  not 
the  vulgar  version  of  the  invocation,  0  mihi  beate  Mar- 
tine  !  have  been  appropriate  to  the  situation  ? 

Further,  continued  Mr.  Lowe — 

From  1837  to  1840  the  deaths  from  Smallpox  amounted  to  12,000 
a-year.  From  1840  to  1853,  during  which  period  Vaccination  was 
provided  by  the  Poor  Law  Boards,  the  annual  average  of  deaths 
was  only  5,200.  Thus  by  the  diffusion  of  Vaccination,  the  mortality 
of  Smallpox  was  reduced  by  more  than  one-half.  Then  in  1853 
the  Compulsory  Law  came  into  operation,  and  its  first  effect  was 
remarkable.  The  number  of  vaccinations  enormously  increased 
and  the  deaths  diminished.  In  1854  they  sank  to  2,808,  and  in 
1855  to  2,525.  Afterwards  they  gradually  increased  up  to  the 
present  time  [When  in  fact  they  never  were  lower !] ,  the  Act 
having,  as  I  already  explained,  fallen  into  desuetude.  Thus  is  the 
efficiency  of  Vaccination  established ! 

Into  such  stuff  may  a  clever  man  descend  !  The  state- 
ment was  rotten  with  untruth.  It  was  gross  misrepre- 
sentation to  set  forth  the  average  mortality  of  12,000  for 
the  years  1837-40  as  permanent  mortality  which  the  Act 
of  1840  reduced  to  5,200.  The  years  1837-40  embraced 
a  severe  epidemic,  following  years  of  quiescence  during 
which  vaccinators  had  been  singing  pseans  over  their 
imaginary  victory.  Holding  as  we  do  that  smallpox 
comes  and  goes  with  indifference  to  vaccination  (unless  in 
so  far  as  it  keeps  the  disease  alive)  the  figures  cited  by 
Mr.  Lowe  as  completely  illustrate  our  contention  as  they 
nullified  his.  By  no  contrivance  can  the  fluctuations  of 
smallpox  be  associated  with  more  or  less  vaccination. 


528  VACCINATION. 


Probably  Mr.  Lowe  was  inspired  by  his  medical  staff', 
but,  if  so,  he  made  the  inspiration  his  own,  evolving  as 
from  personal  certainty,  such  fancy-work  as  this — 

Out  of  1000  who  take  Smallpox  without  being  vaccinated  350 
die  ;  while  out  of  1000  badly  vaccinated  only  150  die  ;  but  out  of 
1000  well  vaccinated  only  5  die. 

To  which  the  conclusive  answer  would  have  been,  that  a 
mortality  of  7  in  20  of  the  unvaccinated  was  about  double 
that  of  smallpox  in  the  time  when  all  were  unvaccinated  ; 
and  that  disregarding  the  factitious  classification,  the 
mortality  over  all  cases  continued  as  it  was  in  the  pre- 
vaccination  era.  What  smallpox  was,  smallpox  has  re- 
mained— discrete,  confluent,  malignant ;  each  type  being 
qualified  as  slight,  dangerous,  and  deadly ;  the  relation 
of  vaccination  to  the  type  being  wholly  irrelevant. 

Further,  he  proclaimed  without  reserve,  that  smallpox 
was  transmuted  to  cowpox  in  the  cow — 

There  was  a  theory  started  that  the  efficacy  of  Vaccination  was 
wearing  out ;  but  the  valuable  discovery  of  Mr.  Ceely  has  set  any 
apprehension  on  that  score  at  rest  for  ever.  Mr.  Ceely  has  proved 
that  Smallpox,  when  taken  from  the  human  body  and  introduced 
to  that  of  the  cow,  produces  Cowpox.  It  is  thus  evident  that  we 
have  the  means  of  obtaining  Cowpox  of  the  requisite  strength  to 
any  extent.  The  beautiful  discovery  has  also  been  made  that  the 
security  of  Vaccination  may  be  almost  indefinitely  increased  by 
multiplying  the  number  of  punctures. 

Thus  was  mystery  dispelled  !  Cowpox  was  smallpox 
diversified  in  the  cow,  and  the  lost  security  of  Jenner's 
single  puncture  was  recovered  in  tattoo ! 

Appealing  to  the  sentiment  of  medical  men  in  favour 
of  vaccination  as  exhibited  in  the  replies  to  Simon's 
queries  in  1857 — a  fallacy  for  conviction  which  Mr.  Lowe 
would  have  been  quick  to  detect  if  advanced  for  any  cleri- 
cal, scholastic,  or  other  trading  interest,  he  observed — 

The  terrible  malady  falls  heavily  upon  young  children  :  in  Vac- 
cination is  their  defence.  Consider,  then,  what  a  painful  responsi- 
bility will  rest  upon  us,  if,  in  the  face  of  almost  unanimous  medical 
testimony,  we  leave  them  to  perish,  and  communicate  a  dreadful 
contagion  throughout  the  country.  These  children  have  no  dis- 
cretion of  their  own ;  and  it  is  a  profanation  of  liberty  and  self- 
government  to  say  that  any  man  has  a  right  to  set  up  his  own 


COMPULSION  INTENSIFIED— 1861  AND  1867.  529 


sordid  and  brutal  prejudices  against  such  medical  opinion,  and 
expose  his  child  to  disease  and  death. 

Words,  ferocious  words ;  but  how  do  they  bear  exa- 
mination ?  Why  should  disbelief  in  vaccination  be 
stigmatised  as  sordid  and  brutal  prejudice  ?  Why  should 
parliamentary  affection  for  children  surpass  parental 
affection?  The  argument,  if  valid,  would  equally  apply  to 
any  matter  in  which  the  conviction  of  a  minority  was  at 
variance  with  that  of  a  majority ;  and  if  in  such  circum- 
stances the  minority  is  bound  to  submission,  where  is  the 
substance  answering  to  civil  and  religious  liberty  ?  If 
the  clear  scientific  persuasion  of  the  smallest  minority 
concerning  such  a  matter  as  vaccination  is  to  be  subjected 
to  vulgar  medical  dictation  by  the  brute  force  of  the 
majority,  what  form  of  tyranny  may  not  be  justified  ? 

The  Bill  [continued  Mr.  Lowe]  which  I  wish  to  pass  into  law  is 
very  simple.  All  that  it  enacts  is  that  Poor  Law  Boards  may 
appoint  persons  to  prosecute  those  whom  the  medical  officers  report 
ought  to  be  prosecuted. 

And  the  bill  was  passed  without  division.  Mr.  Dun- 
combe  and  Mr.  Coningham  protested,  but  neither  had 
mastered  the  question  so  as  to  offer  effective  opposition. 
Mr.  Coningham  observed  that  figures  might  be  made  to 
prove  anything ;  and  as  concerned  the  unanimous  opinion 
of  medical  men,  they  had  to  bear ,  in  mind  the  saying, 
"  There  is  nothing  like  leather."  If  smallpox  had  fallen 
off,  there  were  extensive  sanitary  improvements  to  ac- 
count for  the  fall ;  and,  for  his  part,  he  placed  his  trust 
much  more  in  better  conditions  of  life  for  the  people  than 
in  a  prescription  like  vaccination. 

The  Act  obtained  did  not  fulfil  the  expectations  of  its 
promoters.  Mr.  Lowe's  bitter  regret  for  thousands  of 
lives  lost  in  consequence  of  his  concession  to  Mr.  Dun- 
combe  proved  to  be  wasted  emotion.  Guardians  did  not 
exercise  their  powers  as  inquisitors  and  persecutors  with 
adequate  energy.  Sir  Morton  Peto,  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, on  14th  March,  1864,  asked — 

Whether  the  registration  of  Vaccination  is  not  a  total  failure, 
alike  for  statistical  purposes  and  for  the  prosecution  of  offenders 
.  34 


530  VACCINATION. 


under  the  Compulsory  Act ;  and  whether  it  is  the  intention  of  the 
Government  to  amend  the  law  this  session. 

To  which  Mr.  Lowe  made  answer — 

It  is  quite  true  that  the  system  of  registration  under  the  Act  is 
very  bad,  but  it  would  cost  a  great  deal  of  money  to  improve  it. 
Moreover,  even  when  improved,  it  would  not  make  the  measures 
for  compulsion  effectual  to  any  extent.  The  great  difficulty  of 
working  compulsion  is  not  so  much  due  to  defective  legislation  as 
to  the  reluctance  to  prosecute  poor  people  for  disobedience  to  the 
law,  the  neglect  of  which  is  countenanced  by  too  many  who  ought 
to  know  better.  I  am  sorry,  therefore,  I  cannot  hold  out  any  hope 
of  improving  the  system. 

The  medical  officers  of  the  Poor  Law  Board  were,  how- 
ever, intent  upon  coercive  legislation;  and  Mr.  H.  A. 
Bruce,  more  pliant  than  Mr.  Lowe,  introduced  a  bill  of 
their  contriving  in  1866,  which  he  assured  the  House 
of  Commons  "  involved  no  new  principle,  and  merely 
consolidated  provisions  dispersed  over  six  Acts  of 
Parliament,  with  a  few  amendments."  On  going  into 
committee  on  the  bill,  llth  April,  1866,  he  delivered  an 
elaborate  defence  of  vaccination,  prepared  for  him  by 
the  astute  promoters  of  the  measure,  starting  in  this 
fashion — 

At  the  close  of  last  century  Dr.  Jenner  achieved  his  immortal 
discovery  by  which,  perhaps,  more  misery  has  been  prevented 
through  the  alleviation  of  pain  and  the  preservation  of  life  than  by 
any  other  discovery  that  has  ever  been  made. 

Spoken  from  whatever  elevation,  nothing  divides  talk 
like  this  from  that  of  a  quack  at  a  country  fair.  Having 
struck  the  note,  Mr.  Bruce  ran  through  the  familiar 
gamut  of  assertion  wherewith  the  rite  of  vaccination  is 
supposed  to  be  justified.  The  following  is  a  sample  of 
the  advocacy  imposed  upon  him — 

A  statement  has  been  widely  circulated  that  Syphilis  has  been 
communicated  by  Vaccination.  Millions  of  children  have  been 
vaccinated  in  the  last  sixty  years,  but  not  a  single  case  has  occurred 
in  which  it  has  been  proved  that  Syphilis  has  been  communicated. 
A  case  is  alleged  to  have  occurred  in  France  in  which  a  child  had 
been  vaccinated  from  another  which  inherited  Syphilis,  but  the 
surgeon  in  that  case,  in  taking  lymph  from  a  child  covered  with 
syphilitic  blotches,  acted  in  monstrous  disregard  of  common  pru- 


COMPULSION  INTENSIFIED— 1861  AND  1867.          531 

dence  and  medical  knowledge.  No  such  case,  so  far  as  the  most 
careful  medical  research  can  discover,  has  happened  in  this 
country. 

Whilst  this  statement  would  now  incur  general  dis- 
credit, yet  even  in  1866  the  official  prompters  of  Mr. 
Bruce  presumed  over  much  on  public  credulity.  It  was 
not  probable  that  what  vaccinators  did  not  wish  they 
would  discover ;  or,  if  discovered,  proclaim.  Nevertheless, 
the  denunciation  of  the  "  alleged  "  French  instance  was 
entirely  inconsistent  with  the  contention  that  syphilis 
could  not  be  communicated  from  a  syphilitic  vaccinifer, 
blotched  or  unblotched.  So  much  it  was  imperative  to 
maintain,  for  it  was  obvious  that  the  complete  vaccina- 
tion of  any  population  must  involve  infants  with  latent 
syphilis  whose  virus  might  transfer  the  disease  to  the 
untainted.  This  peril,  opponents  of  vaccination,  from 
Cobbett  onwards,  had  recognised ;  and  as  its  recognition 
was  prejudicial  to  vaccination,  its  possibility  was  stoutly 
outsworn  until  manifold  and  indisputable  evidence  com- 
pelled its  admission,  and  shifted  the  question  to  the 
extent  of  its  frequency. 

Mr.  Henley,  following  Mr.  Bruce,  spoke  some  homely 
sense — 

We  all  know  that  when  we  want  anything  of  the  kind  done,  the 
medical  man  entertains  us  with  a  fine  cock-and-bull  story  about 
waiting  until  he  can  get  lymph  from  a  healthy  child.  This  caution 
implies  risk ;  and  though  it  is  said  that  not  a  single  case  of  injury 
has  occurred  in  sixty  years,  yet  nobody  will  persuade  me  that 
medical  men  take  all  these  pains  (where  they  are  well  paid  and 
watched)  if  there  are  not  grounds  for  the  exercise  of  care.  Un- 
doubtedly it  was  an  abomination  to  take  vaccine  from  a  diseased 
child,  but  how  is  a  public  vaccinator  to  know  that  any  child  is  dis- 
eased? If  he  inquires  too  particularly,  he  will  run  the  risk  of  a 
slapped  face  from  the  mother  for  his  trouble. 

Mr.  Henley  also  drew  attention  to  the  claims  made  for 
vaccination,  coupled  with  the  admission  that  the  greater 
part  of  it  was  good  for  little — 

One  remarkable  statement  has  been  made — that  there  has  been 
an  examination  of  500,000  children  belonging  to  the  humbler 
classes  chiefly  affected  by  Compulsory  Vaccination.  Of  the  number 
so  examined  only  one  in  eight  was  found  to  have  been  perfectly 


532  VACCINATION. 


vaccinated,  which  fact  involves  the  further  fact  that  seven  out  of 
the  eight  were  imperfectly  vaccinated,  or  not  vaccinated  at  all.  If 
only  one  in  eight  has  been  perfectly  vaccinated,  great  doubt  will 
corne  upon  many  people's  minds  as  to  the  matter  with  which  the 
others  have  been  inoculated. 

Much  in  the  bill  was  crude  and  impracticable,  and  Mr. 
Ayrton  expressed  the  sense  of  many  in  the  House  when 
he  observed — 

The  bill  before  us  is  badly  drawn,  and  bears  too  much  the  marks 
of  its  official  origin.  Great  powers  have  been  taken  for  the  vacci- 
nating department,  but  nothing  is  provided  for  the  protection  of 
the  public.  It  seems  to  me  that  if  Vaccination  is  to  be  enforced 
by  penalties,  public  vaccinators  should  be  subject  to  penalties  for 
inefficient  and  injudicious  work.  I  have  been  entrusted  with  a 
great  many  petitions  against  the  bill,  and  I  have  been  much  im- 
pressed with  the  admission  that  the  existing  system  of  Vaccination 
has  entirely  failed  in  effecting  its  object.  The  bill  will  have  to  be 
referred  to  a  Committee,  and  as  many  believe  that  Vaccination 
does  as  much  harm  as  good,  I  trust  the  members  will  not  be 
fettered  in  their  inquiries. 

It  is  needless  to  say  the  asserted  failure  of  vaccination 
was  an  artifice  to  induce  Parliament  to  pass  the  bill. 
The  public  vaccinations  for  1863,  1864,  and  1865,  were 
as  numerous  as  ever,  and  accompanied  with  a  marked 
increase  of  smallpox.  No  doubt  vaccination  was  a 
failure,  but  in  a  different  sense  from  that  in  which  the 
word  was  used  to  acquire  increase  of  power  and  pay  for 
the  application  of  the  rite.  The  bill  was  referred  to  a 
select  committee,  who  reported;  but  the  Conservatives 
having  displaced  the  Liberals,  it  was  withdrawn.  Mr. 
Corry,  in  announcing  the  fact  to  the  House  of  Commons, 
23rd  July,  1866,  said— 

I  have  ascertained  that  the  measure  is  likely  to  meet  with  great 
opposition  on  both  sides  of  the  House ;  and  it  is,  therefore,  very 
doubtful  whether  it  could  be  carried  at  this  late  period  of  the 
session.  Moreover,  some  of  its  provisions  require  further  and  careful 
consideration. 

The  bill  was  framed  and  promoted  by  the  Poor  Law 
Board,  independently  of  Liberals  and  Conservatives,  the 
problem  of  the  medical  officials  being.  "  How  far  is  it 
possible  to  obtain  the  assent  of  Parliament  to  what  we 


COMPULSION  INTENSIFIED— 1861  AND  1867.          533 

consider  desirable."  There  were  limits  to  parliamentary 
complaisance,  however  wide,  and,  informed  by  the  ex- 
perience of  1866,  a  revised  bill  was  introduced  to  the 
House  of  Commons  by  Lord  Robert  Montagu  in  1867, 
who,  like  his  predecessors,  reproduced  the  instructions  of 
his  advisers  with  sufficient  flavour  to  pass  them  off 
as  his  own.  A  portion  of  his  business  was  to  obtain 
recognition  for  the  payment  of  extra  fees  for  successful 
vaccination — 

When  an  Inspector  reports  that  certain  Vaccinations  are  of  the 
1st  class,  the  Public  Vaccinator  will  receive  Is.  over  and  above 
the  sum  paid  by  the  Guardians  for  each  Vaccination  he  has  per- 
formed. If  the  Vaccinations  are  reported  of  the  2nd  class,  he 
will  receive  8d.  For  3rd  class  Vaccinations  nothing  in  excess  of 
the  Guardians'  contract  fee  will  be  paid. 

This  graduation  of  vaccination  excited  no  comment 
though  why  aught  save  first-class  should  have  been 
accounted  tolerable,  or  paid  for,  was  far  from  obvious. 
The  possible  amount  chargeable  for  these  awards  was 
thus  estimated — 

The  ratio  of  children  born  to  the  population  is  about  3£  per  cent., 
which  gives  700,000  a  year  for  the  population  of  20  millions. 
Beckoning  that  four-fifths  of  these  children,  or  560,000,  are  vacci- 
nated gratuitously  during  the  year,  the  expenditure  will  be  £28,000 
if  all  the  Vaccinations  are  1st  class,  and  .£18,500  if  2nd  class. 
Shall  we,  then,  think  it  too  much  if,  for  a  sum  between  ,£18,500 
and  .£28,000  we  ensure  that  there  shall  never  occur  a  case  of  small- 
pox, and  that  we  save  7,000  lives  a  year  ? 

Such  was  the  argument  put  into  the  mouth  of  Lord 
Robert  Montagu  for  the  persuasion  of  Parliament !  Only 
pay  an  extra  price  for  first  and  second  class  vaccination, 
and  not  a  case  of  smallpox  shall  occur  in  England,  and 
7,000  lives  a  year  shall  be  saved !  When  we  inquire 
where  the  7,000  lives  a  year  were  lost,  we  discover  how 
boldly  the  credulity  of  Parliament  was  imposed  upon. 
There  died  of  smallpox  in  England  and  Wales — 

In  1861     1,320         In  1864     7,684 

1862     1,628  1865     6,411 

1863     5,964  1866     2,977 

Where,  then,  were  the  7,000   lives  to  save?      In  1864 


VACCINATION. 


the  mortality  exceeded  7,000 ;  but  to  select  an  extreme 
year  and  represent  it  as  ordinary  would  have  incurred  a 
sharp  epithet  if  practised  in  finance  instead  of  smallpox. 
A  similar  fable  of  salvation  from  smallpox  was  related 
by  Lord  Robert  Montagu  concerning  Scotland.   He  said — 

It  is  wiser  to  save  people's  lives  than  to  consult  their  prejudices. 
The  example  of  Scotland  shows  the  value  of  a  thorough-going 
Vaccination  Act.  The  measure  for  that  country  has  reduced  the 
smallpox  death-rate  from  2,000  to  120  per  annum. 

The  Act  to  extend  and  make  Vaccination  compulsory 
in  Scotland  was  passed  in  1863— an  Act  little  else  than 
superfluous,  for  the  people  were  vaccinated  without  it. 
There  died  of  smallpox  in  Scotland — 

In  1859     682          In  1863     1,648 

1860     1,495  1864     ...         ...     1,741 

1861     766  1865     383 

1862     426  1866  200 


3,369  3,972 

The  average  of  these  eight  years  was  907  deaths  an- 
nually ;  and  one  inquires  with  some  amaze,  Where  were 
the  2,000  which  compulsory  vaccination  reduced  to  120  ? 
It  is  difficult  to  repress  some  indignation  over  such 
measureless  misrepresentation ;  nor  to  point  out  that  we 
are  not  dealing  with  theologians,  who  are  often  assumed 
to  hold  a  license  for  prevarication,  but  with  medical 
officials  with  M.P.'s  for  spokesmen.  The  following  years, 
of  which  Lord  Robert  Montagu,  speaking  in  1867,  was 
necessarily  ignorant,  gave  these  deaths  from  smallpox  in 
Scotland — 

In  1867     100          In  1870     114 

1868     15  1871     1,442 

1869     64  1872     2,488 

Smallpox  was  proclaimed  "  stamped-out "  of  Scotland  in 
1870,  but  the  epidemic  of  1871-72  proved  how  vain  was 
the  boast.  Smallpox,  in  common  with  typhus,  may  be 
exterminated,  but  by  no  such  irrelevance  as  vaccination. 
One  object  of  the  bill  was  the  reconstruction  of  vacci- 


COMPULSION  INTENSIFIED— 1861  AND  1867.          535 

nation  districts,  so  as  to  secure  sufficient  numbers  for 
arm-to-arm  practice. 

It  is  necessary  [said  Lord  E.  Montagu]  to  successful  Vaccina- 
tion that  the  two  classes  of  patients,  those  who  have  been  vacci- 
nated eight  days  before  should  meet  those  who  are  to  be  vaccinated, 
so  that  the  doctor  may  take  vaccine  from  the  arms  of  one  set  and 
transfer  it  to  those  of  the  other. 

Mr.  Henley,  in  opposition,  maintained  that  careful 
vaccination  on  such  terms  was  impracticable,  saying — 

It  seems  a  large  proportion  of  the  Vaccination  provided  by  the 
public  is  imperfect ;  but  the  bill  before  us  is  wholly  inadequate  to 
secure  Vaccination  that  is  trustworthy.  If  a  vaccinator  never  sees 
a  child  until  it  is  brought  to  him,  and  knows  nothing  of  its  parent- 
age, how  can  he  judge  whether  it  is  fit  to  be  vaccinated,  or  fit  to 
serve  for  the  vaccination  of  others?  No  torture  will  induce  a 
mother  to  confess  before  company  that  anything  ails  her  baby. 
Every  one  who  knows  anything  of  women  is  aware  that  they  will 
conceal  in  public  what  they  may  reveal  in  the  privacy  of  home. 
The  shame  of  making  known  her  own  infirmities,  or  those  of  her 
family,  will  keep  a  woman  silent  in  a  crowd,  and  if  she  does  reply 
to  awkward  questions,  it  will  be  to  mislead.  Medical  men  will 
consequently  be  perplexed  and  outwitted ;  and,  therefore,  on  the 
terms  prescribed  a  safe  and  efficient  system  of  Vaccination  cannot 
be  secured. 

Further,  said  Mr.  Henley,  the  bill  was  defective 
because  no  attempt  was  made  to  conciliate  the  prejudices 
or  consult  the  convenience  of  the  people  who  were  com- 
pelled to  have  their  children  vaccinated. 

The  bill  is  one  of  pure  coercion,  making  no  allowance  for  those 
who  are  brought  under  its  scope.  It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the 
poor  mother  is  not  able  to  do  much  within  the  month  after  her 
confinement.  The  period  of  three  months  specified  within  which 
Vaccination  must  be  effected  will  press  very  severely  upon  the 
lower  orders.  We  are  told  that  no  district  of  less  than  5,000  in- 
habitants will  work  successfully,  and  that  10,000  is  a  better  number. 
If  country  districts  are  to  comprise  5,000,  how  many  miles  will 
poor  folk  have  to  travel  to  reach  a  vaccination  station  ?  Consider 
the  inconvenience  it  will  be  to  a  woman  to  drag  her  child  two  or 
three  miles  for  vaccination,  and  be  obliged  to  go  a  second  time  for 
inspection  !  The  medical  authorities  insist  that  four  punctures  at 
least  ought  to  be  made  on  the  unfortunate  children.  Not  only  are 
those  four  wounds  to  be  inflicted,  but  the  children  are  to  be  brought 
in  all  weathers  to  have  their  wounds  opened  and  matter  extracted 
for  the  benefit  of  others,  thus  prolonging  their  sufferings  and  the 


536  VACCINATION. 


cares  of  their  mothers.  If  we  are  to  act  upon  the  principle  of  doing 
as  we  should  be  done  by,  I  would  ask  how  you  would  like  to  be 
compelled  to  carry  your  children  to  a  vaccination  station  and  have 
them  mixed  up  with  all  and  sundry,  and  inoculated  at  a  hazard 
with  you  know  not  what  ?  For  myself  I  see  no  difficulty  in  having 
the  children  of  the  poor  vaccinated  at  their  own  homes.  It  would 
be  far  better  to  pay  more  and  work  discriminately  than  let  the 
people  think  there  is  one  law  for  the  rich  and  another  for  the  poor. 
If  you  simply  try  to  drive  you  will  find  the  people  apt  to  kick,  and 
still  more  ready  to  evade  the  restrictions  you  put  upon  them. 

Mr.  Kendall  confirmed  Mr.  Henley,  saying — 

As  Chairman  of  a  large  Union,  I  have  seen  great  inconvenience 
from  the  crowding  of  children  at  vaccination  stations.  They  are 
taken  to  those  stations  whether  wet  or  dry,  and  cold  and  shivering 
are  kept  huddled  together  in  a  manner  most  likely  to  breed  illness 
and  diffuse  infection. 

Mr.  Lowe  sneered  at  Mr.  Henley's  concern  for  the 
poor,  reminding  him  that  the  wounds  he  deplored  would 
save  them  from  a  loathsome  disease.  Mr.  Henley  did 
not  dispute  the  salvation,  as  he  might  have  done,  but 
pleaded  for  its  more  considerate  performance.  Spite,  too, 
of  his  assumption,  there  is  one  law  for  the  rich  and 
another  for  the  poor.  Compulsory  vaccination  as  applied 
to  the  majority  would  never  be  tolerated  by  the  upper 
and  middle  class  minority;  nor  would  a  plutocratic 
Parliament  have  entertained  so  profane  a  project.  Nor 
(it  must  be  said)  would  working  men  show  themselves 
much  more  enduring  in  their  own  persons.  The  victims 
of  the  law  are  their  wives  and  children;  and  it  is  surpris- 
ing how  much  indignity  and  cruelty  they  will  endure 
in  these  helpless  dependents.  Mr.  Henley  was  more 
chivalrous  for  them  than  they  are  for  themselves. 

An  argument  for  fresh  legislation  was  the  failure  of 
the  Act  of  1853.  Mr.  Brady  said— 

As  a  medical  man  I  can  testify  that  medical  men  are  almost 
unanimous  in  favour  of  Compulsory  Vaccination ;  but  in  order  to 
give  the  public  the  full  benefit  of  the  system  it  must  be  fairly  paid 
for.  We  shall  be  penny  wise  and  pound  foolish  unless  the  persons 
employed  to  carry  out  this  measure  are  liberally  remunerated. 
When  the  bill  of  1853  was  before  the  House,  I  said  the  remunera- 
tion was  inadequate,  and  that  the  Act  would  be  a  failure,  and  that 
prediction  has  proved  true. 


COMPULSION  INTENSIFIED— 1861  AND  1867.          537 

That  the  Act  of  1853  was  a  failure,  in  the  sense  of  not 
securing  the  vaccination  of  the  people,  was  untrue — 
though  necessarily  true  as  concerned  the  prevention  of 
.smallpox.  The  assertion  of  failure  in  1867  was  an  arti- 
fice to  overcome  the  apathy  of  Parliament.  It  was 
assumed  that  there  was  a  population  to  be  vaccinated, 
and  vaccinated  in  a  new  and  superior  fashion,  if  only 
better  pay  were  provided.  More  money  was  wanted  to 
work  the  Vaccination  Mill.  In  the  words  of  Lord  Robert 
Montagu — 

On  the  birth  of  a  child  being  registered,  the  Eegistrar  is  bound 
to  give  notice  to  the  parent,  and  to  supply  him  with  proper  forms, 
whether  for  public  or  private  Vaccination.  He  will  enter  in  a  book 
the  name  of  the  child,  with  the  means  of  identification.  After 
Vaccination,  the  Public  Vaccinator  will  send  the  certificate  of  suc- 
cessful Vaccination  to  the  Eegistrar,  who  will  enter  it  in  his  book. 
Thus  the  Registrar  will  know  which  children  have  been  registered 
in  his  district  and  which  have  not ;  which  children  are  liable  to 
Smallpox  and  which  are  not  liable.  [0  Credulitas  !]  Then  it  is 
made  the  interest  of  all  concerned  to  work  the  system  and  enforce 
its  checks.  It  is  the  interest  of  every  Local  Registrar  to  hunt  up 
every  birth,  because  for  every  entry  he  has  Is.  It  is  his  interest  to 
obtain  the  certificate  of  successful  Vaccination,  for  entering  which 
he  has  3d.  It  is  the  interest  of  the  Public  Vaccinator  to  operate 
on  as  many  children  as  possible,  because  for  each  successful  opera- 
tion he  has  at  least  Is.  6d.,  and  for  first  class  work  an  extra  Is.  It 
is  the  interest  of  the  parent  to  have  his  child  vaccinated,  for  he  is 
otherwise  subject  to  legal  proceedings  and  a  penalty  of  20s. 

Colonel  Barttelot  objected,  saying — 

There  are  about  750,000  births  annually  in  this  country,  and  the 
parents  of  the  majority  surely  deserve  some  consideration.  250,000 
of  them  can  neither  read  or  write,  yet  they  are  liable  to  a  fine  of 
20s.  if  they  do  not  comply  with  the  printed  forms  of  this  Act.  It 
would  be  much  better  to  send  doctors  to  the  homes  of  the  children 
than  collect  mothers  and  infants  in  crowds  at  vaccination  stations. 

Mr.  Bruce  replied  that  it  was  proposed  to  do  nothing 
new — 

Compulsory  Vaccination  on  the  same  terms  has  been  the  law  of 
the  land  since  1853.  The  present  bill  lays  down  no  new  principle. 
It  merely  collects  the  scattered  provisions  of  the  law,  and  supplies 
machinery  found  necessary  after  much  experience. 

The  observation  was,  no  doubt,  ingenuous  on  the  part 


538  VACCINATION. 


of  the  speaker ;  but,  misled  himself,  he  assisted  to  mis- 
lead the  House.     The  bill,  Section  31,  ran  as  follows — 

If  any  Registrar,  or  any  Officer  appointed  by  the  Guardians  to 
enforce  the  provisions  of  this  Act,  shall  give  information  in 
writing  to  a  Justice  of  the  Peace,  that  he  has  reason  to  believe  that 
any  child  under  the  age  of  14  years,  being  within  the  Union  or 
Parish  for  which  the  informant  acts,  has  not  been  successfully 
vaccinated,  and  that  he  has  given  notice  to  the  parent  or  person 
having  the  custody  of  such  child  to  procure  its  being  vaccinated, 
and  that  this  notice  has  been  disregarded,  the  Justice  may  summon 
such  parent  or  person  to  appear  with  the  child  before  him  at  a 
certain  time  and  place,  and  upon  the  appearance,  if  the  Justice 
shall  find,  after  such  examination  as  he  shall  deem  necessary ,  that 
the  child  has  not  been  vaccinated,  nor  has  already  had  the  Small- 
pox, he  may,  if  he  see  fit,  make  an  order  under  his  hand  and  seal 
directing  such  child  to  be  vaccinated  within  a  certain  time ;  and 
if,  at  the  expiration  of  such  time,  the  child  shall  not  have  been  so 
vaccinated,  or  shall  not  be  shown  to  be  then  unfit  to  be  vaccinated, 
or  to  be  insusceptible  of  Vaccination,  the  person  upon  whom  such 
an  order  shall  have  been  made  shall  be  proceeded  against  sum- 
marily, and,  unless  he  can  show  some  reasonable  ground  for  his 
omission  to  carry  the  order  into  effect,  shall  be  liable  to  a  penalty 
not  exceeding  20s. 

Yet,  said  Mr.  Bruce,  it  was  proposed  to  do  nothing- 
new  !  Here  was  a  development  of  compulsion  subjecting 
a  parent  to  prosecution  during  fourteen  years  of  the  life 
of  his  child,  and  it  was  nothing  new !  What  resulted 
from  this  aggravation  of  the  law,  devised  with  craft  and 
enacted  with  indifference,  remains  to  be  seen. 

The  bill  wTas  opposed  by  Sir  J.  Clarke  Jervoise,  Mr. 
Thomas  Chambers,  and  Mr.  Barrow.  Mr.  Chambers  pro- 
phesied— 

I  am  persuaded  that  when  the  bill  is  passed  an  agitation  will 
commence  which  will  never  cease  until  the  Act  is  repealed. 

The  carelessness  and  indifference  of  the  House  were, 
however,  insuperable.  It  was  legislation  for  "  the  lower 
orders,"  and  concerned  ''respectable  folk"  not  at  all.  The 
bill  was  read  a  third  time  without  opposition,  slipped 
through  the  Lords  unopposed,  and  received  the  Royal 
assent,  12th  August,  1867,  as  80  and  31  VICTORIA,  Cap. 
84 — An  Act  to  consolidate  and  amend  the  Laivs  relating 
to  Vaccination. 


COMPULSION  INTENSIFIED— 1861  AND  1867.          539" 

As  another  example  of  the  advocacy  with  which  this 
bill  was  commended  to  the  House  of  Commons,  I  take 
the  following  from  the  close  of  the  speech  of  Lord 
Robert  Montagu,  when  introducing  it  to  committee, 
14th- June,  1867.  He  said- 
Smallpox  differs  from  other  epidemics  in  this,  that  it  is  one  of 
the  worst,  but  is  absolutely  preventible.  In  other  diseases  all  that 
can  be  done  by  the  removal  of  predisposing  conditions  is  to  miti- 
gate their  virulence ;  but  Smallpox  may  be  altogether  prevented. 
If,  then,  one  who  raises  his  hand  against  another  and  kills  him  is 
guilty  of  murder,  of  what  shall  he  be  guilty  who,  by  voice  or  vote 
in  this  House,  endeavours  to  prevent  the  passing  of  a  measure 
which  will  make  it  absolutely  certain  that  Smallpox  shall  no  longer 
kill  7,000  a-year  in  this  country ! 

This  absurd  adjuration  was  too  much  for  Mr.  Henley, 
who  observed — 

The  somewhat  formidable  close  of  the  noble  Lord's  speech  made 
it  difficult  to  know  whether  I  ought  not  to  walk  out  of  the  House 
and  leave  the  responsibility  of  the  measure  to  others.  He  said 
those  who  objected  to  the  bill  would  be  guilty  of  the  deaths  of  those 
who  died  of  Smallpox. 

Lord  EGBERT  MONTAGU — I  said  that  Smallpox  was  so  far  pre- 
ventible that  those  who  stopped  the  adoption  of  Vaccination  would 
be  guilty  of  the  deaths  of  7,000  children  a-year. 

Mr.  HENLEY — I  understood  the  noble  Lord  to  say  that  they 
would  incur  that  guilt  if  they  objected  to  the  machinery  of  the  bill. 

Lord  ROBERT  MONTAGU — No  ;  not  to  its  machinery. 

Mr.  HENLEY — Then  I  do  not  know  precisely  what  the  noble 
Lord  does  mean. 

In  short,  the  bill  was  neither  honestly  advocated  or 
seriously  considered.  On  the  one  hand,  members  of 
Parliament  were  prejudiced,  ignorant  and  credulous,  and 
careless  as  to  legislation  that  did  not  affect  their  families 
or  those  of  their  influential  constituents.  On  the  other 
hand  there  was  a  knot  of  medical  officials  eager  for 
power  and  the  aggrandisement  of  their  profession,  who- 
did  not  disdain  to  practise  upon  the  prejudice,  the  ignor- 
ance, and  the  credulity  of  Parliament.  The  result  was 
an  insufferable  outrage  upon  the  rights  of  every  noncon- 
formist— an  outrage  which,  if  perpetrated  on  the  theolo- 
gical instead  of  the  scientific  conscience,  would  have 
roused  Englishmen  to  fever  heat. 


540  VACCINATION. 


CHAPTER    XLII. 

THE   GATHERING  MOVEMENT — 1867-70. 

SECTION  31  of  the  Act  of  1867  implied  the  doom  of 
Vaccination.  It  was  bad  enough  to  fine  a  parent  for 
refusing  to  vaccinate  his  child ;  it  was,  however,  a  cir- 
cumscribed annoyance ;  but  to  make  of  refusal  a  con- 
tinuous offence  until  a  child  attained  the  age  of  fourteen 
was  to  set  up  a  cause  of  quarrel  that  had  to  be  fought 
out.  Slavery  in  the  United  States  is  abolished,  but 
slavery  might  have  endured  to  this  day  had  the 
Southerners  been  more  forbearing ;  but,  in  the  arro- 

fince  of  their  power,  they  imposed  on  the  Union  the 
ugitive  Slave  Law,  compelling  the  people  of  the  North 
to  surrender  runaway  negroes.  This  triumph  of  the 
slaveholders  determined  the  fate  of  slavery.  In  like 
manner  the  arrogance  of  the  vaccinators  overcame  their 
prudence.  Resolved  to  subdue  resistance  to  their  rite, 
they  drove  resistance  to  extremity,  and  set  up  an  irre- 
ducible insurrection.  As  a  medical  prescription  accepted 
at  discretion,  vaccination  might  have  survived  unques- 
tioned and  paid  for ;  but  its  transition  into  an  aggressive 
statute  removed  it  from  the  safe  realm  of  professional 
mystery  into  the  jurisdiction  of  common  sense,  common 
observation,  and  every  man's  business. 

Sec.  31,  Act  '67,  was  quickly  turned  to  account  by 
the  medical  officials  who  had  devised  and  imposed  it 
upon  the  indifference  of  Parliament.  They  had,  of 
course,  to  operate  through  local  poor-law  authorities — a 
painful  necessity;  but  guardians  were  occasionally  as 
fanatical  as  themselves,  and  exasperated,  too,  that  their 
petty  authority  should  be  set  at  naught,  and  especially 
by  parents  in  humble  life.  Consequently,  here  and  there 
over  the  country  continued  prosecutions  for  refusing  to 
vaccinate  were  initiated,  stirring  up  strife,  begetting 
sympathy  with  the  prosecuted,  and  gradually  converting 


THE  GATHERING  MOVEMENT— 1867-70.  541 

vaccination  into  a  living  political  question.  Whatever 
may  be  thought  of  Sec.  31,  Act  '67,  all  will  allow  that 
it  drew  a  line  and  established  irritation  and  conflict. 
Opposition  to  vaccination  had  hitherto  to  contend  with 
nothing  so  deadly  as  apathy,  but  from  that  drawback  it 
was  now  delivered.  On  the  other  hand,  in  many  parishes. 
Sec.  31,  Act  '67  was  allowed  to  make  no  difference. 
Those  who  disliked  vaccination  were  warned,  or  prose- 
cuted once,  and  then  let  alone ;  but  this  leniency  served 
to  accentuate  the  severity  practised  elsewhere,  and  ta 
render  the  law  still  more  odious  by  reason  of  the  flagrant 
inequality  of  its  administration. 

The  scientific  opposition  to  vaccination,  initiated  by 
Mr.  John  Gibbs  in  1855,  had  for  some  years  few  acces- 
sions, and  it  required  faith  in  truth  in  full  measure  to 
persist  in  its  advocacy.  The  Jennerian  tradition  was  so 
rooted  in  the  public  mind  that  to  question  it  savoured  of 
paradox  or  profanity.  There  were  occasional  manifesta- 
tions of  scepticism  when  smallpox  attacked  the  vacci- 
nated, but  doubt  was  crushed  down  as  impious  and 
dangerous  to  established  confidence.  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer, 
for  example,  in  Social  Statics,  published  in  1851,  ob- 
served— 

The  measures  enjoined  by  the  Vaccination  Act  of  1840  were  to 
have  exterminated  Smallpox ;  yet  the  reports  of  the  Registrar- 
General  show  that  deaths  from  Smallpox  have  been  increasing. 

To  such  matter-of-fact  criticism,  any  answer  must 
have  taken  form  in  the  style  of  the  bewildered  diviner 
who  exclaimed,  "  Dear  brethren,  what  theology  can  we 
enjoy  if  such  objections  be  entertained !" 

Dr.  Charles  T.  Pearce  was  one  of  the  first  to  unite 
with  Mr.  Gibbs  in  his  labours.  As  editor  of  a  medical 
journal,  he  happened  to  receive  an  article  from  Mr. 
Gibbs  which  set  him  thinking,  and  as  the  result  of  his 
inquiries,  he  came  out  an  enthusiastic  anti-vaccinator. 
He  made  the  question  of  vaccination  completely  his  own, 
and  lectured  on  the  subject  throughout  the  country, 
eager  and  ready  for  combat.  In  Northampton,  in  1860, 
he  held  his  first  public  debate,  and  under  his  influence 


542  VACCINATION. 


the  town  became  a  centre  of  resistance  to  the  compulsory 
law,  so  that  Mr.  Charles  Gilpin,  M.R  for  the  borough, 
addressing  his  constituents  in  1870,  thus  expressed  him- 
self— 

I  have  always  thought  that  when  we  try  to  enforce  one  of  the 
ever-changing  opinions  of  medical  men,  we  touch  upon  the  liberty 
of  the  subject  and  the  rights  of  human  nature.  I  find  that  a 
number  of  parents  are  fined  because  they  are  convinced  that 
Vaccination  is  useless  and  injurious.  I  ask,  What  is  the  character 
of  those  parents  ?  Are  they  idle  ?  Are  they  dissolute  ?  Are  they 
drunken  ?  Are  they  careless  of  the  welfare  of  their  children  ?  The 
answer  is  emphatically,  No !  They  are  thoughtful,  they  are  in- 
dustrious, they  are  sober.  They  are  men  who  look  into  the  reasons 
of  things,  and  who  decline  to  be  driven  into  any  course  of  conduct 
which  they  do  not  rationally  approve.  When  I  was  in  business  in 
the  City  of  London  I  had  my  goods  seized  almost  every  year  for 
Church  rates.  I  objected  to  the  law,  and  with  a  free  heart  and  a  firm 
voice,  I  said  I  will  endure  the  penalty.  I  would  not  obey  a  law 
which  I  knew  to  be  wrong.  Therefore  it  is  that  I  sympathise  with 
those  who  are  persuaded  that  Vaccination  is  wrong ;  and  for  their 
encouragement  and  consolation  let  me  say,  that  as  compulsory 
Church  rates  were  abolished  because  of  the  stedfast  testimony 
"borne  against  them  by  Nonconformists,  so  will  compulsion  as  ap- 
plied to  Vaccination,  if  resistance  is  consistently  and  seriously 
maintained.  As  the  Society  of  Friends  has  demonstrated,  no  law 
•can  survive  under  the  parsisteni  protest  of  conscience. 

Tenacity  was  the  distinction  of  Dr.  Pearce.  Undis- 
mayed by  whatever  odds,  he  maintained  his  position 
with  deliberation  and  patience,  and  by  neither  historical, 
statistical,  or  physiological  data  was  it  possible  to  cir- 
cumvent him.  When  he  entered  into  the  controversy 
in  1856,  fool  and  fanatic  was  the  summary  designation 
of  whoever  ventured  to  dispute  the  salvation  wrought 
by  vaccination;  but,  living  until  1883,  he  witnessed 
such  epithets  received  with  amusement  as  denoting 
the  ill-humour  and  impotence  of  those  who  employed 
them. 

An  energetic  advocate  of  the  good  cause  appeared  in 
Dr.  W.  J.  Collins,  who,  after  twenty  years  of  service  in 
London  as  public  vaccinator,  felt  compelled  to  renounce 
the  practice  as  useless  and  injurious.  He  stated  his  con- 
viction frankly  and  forcibly  before  the  St.  Pancras  Sani- 


THE  GATHERING  MOVEMENT— 1867-70.  543 

tary  Committee  in  1863,*  and  in  an  essay,  vigorous  with 
mother-wit,  published  in  1867,f  he  communicated  much 
useful  and  unpleasant  information  to  the  credulous  and 
deceived  public.  To  contend  with  a  judgment  thus 
instructed  and  qualified  was  useless ;  and  those  who  were 
affected  by  the  exposure  took  care  to  avoid  it.  Nor  con- 
sidering the  danger  to  the  craft  from  discussion,  was  the 
policy  injudicious.  Truth  has  many  adversaries,  but 
none  so  hard  to  overcome  as  the  non-resistant  silence  of 
timorous  self-interest. 

A  leader  and  organiser  of  the  opposition  was  wanted, 
and  he  appeared  in  Richard  Butler  Gibbs,  cousin  of  John 
Gibbs,  who,  as  we  have  seen,  framed  the  first  systematic 
indictment  of  vaccination  in  1855.  Mr.  Gibbs,  of  Irish 
parentage,  was  born  in  London  in  1822,  and  in  the  course 
of  a  commercial  career  became  agent  at  Pease's  West 
Collieries  for  Joseph  Pease  of  Darlington,  the  first  Quaker 
M.P.  It  was  in  1863,  when  a  member  of  the  Bishop 
Auckland  board  of  guardians,  that  he  first  moved  publicly 
against  vaccination,  and  then  less  against  the  practice 
itself  than  against  its  prescription  by  the  authority  at 
that  time  vested  in  the  Privy  Council.  He  cautioned  his 
colleagues  that  the}7  were  likely  to  become  (as  they  since 
have)  the  tools  of  a  central  medical  clique.  Subsequently 
finding  himself  comparatively  free  from  business,  he 
devoted  himself  to  the  cause  with  which  his  name 
has  been  identified.  Gathering  together  the  scattered 
elements  of  resistance,  he  formed  in  1866  the  Anti- 
Compulsory  Vaccination  League,  and  travelled  over  the 
country,  lecturing  and  holding  public  meetings.  The 
enactment  of  repeated  penalties  for  non-vaccination, 
strenuously  resisted  by  Mr.  Gibbs,  established  "  a  raw," 
and  conferred  on  the  League  a  grievance  and  purpose 

*  Twenty  Years'  Experience  of  a  Public  Vaccinator.  Read  before  the 
Sanitary  Committee  of  St.  Pancras,  9th  June,  1863.  Third  edition. 
London,  1866. 

f  Have  you  been  Vaccinated?  and  What  Protection  is  Vaccination 
against  Smallpox?  By  William  J.  Collins,  M.D.  Fourth  edition. 
London,  1868. 


544  VACCINATION. 


everywhere  recognised  as  indisputable  by  the  people. 
Sec.  31,  Act  '67  was  in  a  popular  sense  the  making  of  the 
agitation  against  vaccination  ;  and  it  has  been  maintained 
(in  a  sense  fortunately)  until  even  the  withdrawal  of  the 
aggravation  cannot  save  vaccination  itself  from  ultimate 
rejection.  What  at  the  moment  we  like  least,  often  in 
the  end  serves  us  best. 

Mr.  Henry  Pitman  of  Manchester  entered  actively  into 
the  movement.  He  had  observed  the  ill  effects  of  vacci- 
nation upon  one  of  his  own  children,  and  in  connection 
with  Mr.  R  B.  Gibbs  organised  public  meetings  in 
Manchester  and  other  places.  In  1869  he  tried  how  far 
a  penny  journal  would  succeed,  and  started  The  Anti-  Vac- 
cinator  which  ran  for  eighteen  weeks.  As  editor  of  The 
Co-operator,  which  he  conducted  for  ten  years,  he  gave 
prominence  to  vaccination  news,  and  in  1870  adjoined 
Anti-Vaccinator  to  the  title,  which  was  continued  until 
The  Co-operative  News  was  established  in  1871,  when  he 
maintained  the  publication  as  The  Anti-Vaccinator  until 
the  close  of  the  year.  In  1876  Mr.  Pitman  bore  testi- 
mony to  his  convictions  by  going  to  the  Knutsford 
House  of  Correction  rather  than  pay  the  fine  and  costs 
imposed  upon  him  for  refusing  to  have  his  daughter, 
Violet,  vaccinated,  and  in  Prison  Thoughts  conveyed  to 
others  the  lesson  of  his  experience.  Mr.  Pitman  has 
been  remarkably  successful  in  impressing  public  men 
with  his  opinions.  Courteous  and  persistent,  he  has  won 
consideration  where  rougher  speech  might  not  have  pre- 
vailed. 

Professor  F.  W.  Newman  was  led  to  a  knowledge  of 
the  dangers  of  vaccination  by  Mr.  Henry  Pitman ;  and 
those  who  have  been  observant  of  his  career  in  later 
years  know  with  what  courage  and  consistency  he  has 
asserted  his  convictions.  Having  asked  the  Professor 
how  he  became  concerned  in  the  opposition  to  vaccina- 
tion, he  favoured  me  thus — 

"  The  outline  of  my  mental  history  in  this  direction  is 
as  follows.  Circumstances  had  led  me  to  respect  Mr. 
Henry  Pitman  as  a  competent  and  truthful  witness  of 


THE  GATHERING  MOVEMENT— 1867-70.  545 

fact.  On  a  certain  occasion  he  spoke  publicly  on  the 
miserable  state  to  which  he  had  seen  a  poor  lad,  Ira  Connell 
of  Southport,  reduced  by  vaccination.  Ira's  parents,  and 
his  brothers  and  sisters,  were  all  hale:  his  mother  attested 
that  previous  to  vaccination  so  was  Ira.  But  after  vac- 
cination, Ira  had  never  recovered  its  dreadful  effects, 
three  of  his  four  limbs  being  crippled. 

"  Some  years  later,  I  myself  saw  Ira  Connell  at  South- 
port.  I  think  his  age  was  then  25,  bat  am  not  sure. 
He  had  only  one  leg  sound,  and  hardly  one  arm.  I  will 
not  undertake  to  describe  his  state  exactly,  but  it  was 
very  pitiable.  I  am  happy  to  add  that  in  nine  or  ten 
years  more  he  has  gradually  recovered,  so  as  at  least  not 
to  be  visibly  crippled. 

"  Previously  I  had  refused  to  read  anti-vaccination 
tracts,  having  too  much  already  to  read.  I  had  never 
known  or  heard  in  my  own  circles  of  mischief  from 
vaccination,  and  when  some  German  ladies  spoke  of  its 
'horrors'  I  thought  them  absurd  and  fanatical;  but  now 
that  Henry  Pitman  publicly  attested  a  fact,  this  woke 
me  up  to  the  duty  of  further  inquiry. 

"I  at  once  remembered  that  in  my  early  youth  or 
boyhood  I  had  been  staggered  by  reading  in  a  medical 
journal  that  experience  made  it  impossible  to  sustain 
Jenner's  doctrine  that  vaccination  was  a  certain  prevent- 
ive of  smallpox ;  but  the  writer  nevertheless  urged  that 
it  was  valuable  for  making  smallpox  milder  if  it  did 
follow.  This  struck  me  as  an  ugly  shifting  of  the  basis, 
and  far  from  plausible.  One  school-and-college  fellow  of 
mine,  after  vaccination,  had  smallpox  that  marked  him ; 
but  nothing  further  led  me  to  pursue  the  argument. 

"  I  now  at  once  saw  that  compulsory  vaccination  was 
an  infamy,  since  Parliament  could  not  secure  any  one 
from  Ira  Connell's  fate  :  and  I  was  indignant  on  learning 
that  doctors  pooh-poohed  such  miseries,  as  endured  'for 
the  general  good!  &  theory  which  justifies  any  amount 
of  tyranny  under  the  influence  of  superstition;  and  I 
presently  remembered  that  in  Roman  pestilences  sacri- 
fices were  believed  efficacious,  and  the  arguments  of  the 
35 


546  VACCINATION. 


priests  and  senators  were  quite  as  good  as  those  of  our 
physicians. 

"  I  find  that  in  1869  I  had  a  sharp  debate  with  a  clever 
young  student  of  Medicine,  who  poured  out  the  doctrines 
of  the  Faculty,  which  he  had  been  getting  up.  My 
respect  for  the  whole  Faculty  has  rapidly  got  less  and 
less ;  it  had  long  been  declining.  I  need  not  obtrude  on 
you  the  depth  to  which  it  has  now  sunk,  excepting 
always  a  noble  few,  who  are  what  Heretics  were  to  the 
Mediaeval  Church. 

"  Next  I  saw  that  no  Parliament  or  King  has,  or  can 
have,  any  right  (on  medical  theory)  to  stick  a  poisoned 
lancet  into  a  healthy  person;  and  that  to  fancy  that 
Human  Health  can  be  improved  by  altering  the  natural 
blood  of  Health  is  an  imbecile  contemptible  fancy. 
Moreover,  that  unless  Vaccination  is  believed  to  remove 
the  causes  of  smallpox,  those  causes  would  entail  disease 
in  other  ways,  and  perhaps  worse,  by  suppressing  the 
natural  eruption,  which  eruption  alone  is  called  '  Small- 
pox.' My  mind  was  thus  decided. 

"I  did  not  learn  till  some  years  later  (what  alone 
concerns  Parliament)  that  the  more  active  is  small- 
pox, the  less  is  the  Total  Mortality  of  any  year ;  and 
conversely,  the  less  active  the  smallpox,  the  greater  is 
the  Total  Mortality.  This  is  the  only  form  of  statistics 
worth  attending  to.  All  the  rest  is  dust  thrown  in  our 
eyes. 

"  Statistics  not  founded  on  a  scientific  principle  are  the 
commonest  nidus  of  fallacy ;  but  if  any  statistics  are  to 
be  listened  to,  those  of  Total  Mortality  are  the  least  open 
to  suspicion.  The  primd  facie  evidence  is,  that  instead 
of  Vaccination  saving  yearly  80,000  lives  (Sir  Lyon 
Playf air's  monstrous  assertion)  Vaccination  does  only 
harm ;  but  that  Smallpox  saves  every  year  many  lives 
(some  hundreds  or  thousands)  by  a  natural  eruption, 
under  the  morbid  circumstances  desirable." 

The  Countess  de  Noailles  contributed  most  efficient 
assistance  toward  opening  the  public  mind  and  letting 
in  light.  In  a  communication  her  ladyship  says — 


THE  GATHERING  MOVEMENT— 1867-70.  547 

"  You  ask  me  how  it  was  that  my  name  came  to  be 
connected  with  the  present  anti-vaccination  movement. 

"  It  was  in  this  way.  On  my  return  to  England  in 
1865,  Mrs.  Cowper-Temple,  now  Lady  Mount  Temple, 
asked  me  to  visit  the  office  of  the  Ladies'  Sanitary 
Association,  which  I  had  joined  her  in  starting  four  years 
before.  I  had  wished  the  Association  to  be  called  the 
Ladies'  Association  for  the  Protection  of  the  Health  of 
the  Children  of  the  Poor ;  but  that  was  thought  too  long 
a  name,  and  was  changed ;  and  I  mention  it  only  to 
explain  what  rny  idea  was  in  helping  to  form  the  Society. 
Well,  on  visiting  the  office  of  the  Association,  I  saw 
among  the  sanitary  tracts  one  with  the  title,  When  ivere 
you  vaccinated?  On  reading  the  words,  it  struck  me 
suddenly  that  vaccination  was  all  wrong,  but  as  I  knew 
nothing  whatever  about  it,  and  had  heard  naught  but 
praise  of  the  practice,  I  told  the  excellent  secretary  of 
the  Association  my  misgivings  on  the  subject,  and  she 
set  to  work  to  find  out  all  that  was  known  or  thought 
on  the  question.  Miss  Griffiths  soon  learnt  that  three 
relatives — John,  Richard,  and  George  Gibbs — had  for 
twenty  years  been  writing  and  working  against  vaccina- 
tion, besides  Dr.  Collins  and  others.  Seeing  that  I  was 
not  afone  in  my  conviction,  I  resolved  to  elicit  more 
opinion  on  the  subject  by  giving  a  prize  for  the  best 
essay  on  the  same,  setting  forth  the  supposed  benefits, 
dangers,  etc.  Miss  Griffiths  went  heart  and  soul  into 
the  question,  and  with  the  help  of.  Dr.  Druitt,  I  think, 
she  had  judges  named  and  the  prize  of  £100  offered. 
The  judges  were  Mr.  Marson,  Dr.  Richardson,  and  Dr. 
Francis  Webb — all  in  favour  of  vaccination.  The  great 
length  of  the  essay  by  Dr.  Ballard  gave  it  a  claim  for  the 
prize,  and  the  tremendous  because  unavoidable  admis- 
sions as  to  the  dreadful  dangers  of  vaccination  contained 
in  this  Prize  Essay,  have  caused  the  doctors  to  try  to 
suppress  it — so  at  least  I  have  heard. 

"  Miss  Griffiths  sent  me  in  November,  1866,  the  Lancet, 
containing  a  horrible  account  of  the  poisoning  of  thirty- 
six  children  in  Morbihan,  Brittany,  by  public  vaccination. 


548  VACCINATION. 


"  My  forebodings  being  thus  so  terribly  confirmed,  I 
tried  to  interest  all  the  doctors  who  advised  the  Ladies' 
Sanitary  Association  in  the  new  difficulties  in  the  way 
of  this  dreadful  practice ;  but  the  only  one  who  lent  an 
ear  to  the  sad  tale  was  Dr.  Garth  Wilkinson,  who  began 
mildly,  but  afterwards  waxed  valiant  in  fight.  May  he 
and  the  little  band  which  his  genius  has  helped  to  bring 
into  the  field  '  soon  put  to  flight  the  armies  of  the  aliens/ 

"In  1867  a  letter  from  the  Kev.  W.  Hume-Rothery 
against  compulsory  vaccination  struck  me,  and  he  set  to 
work  at  the  question  in  the  co-operative  newspapers ; 
and  latterly  in  the  Reporter^  in  which  he  has  been  ably 
helped  by  Mrs.  Hume-Rothery,  the  daughter  of  the  late 
Mr.  Joseph  Hume,  M.P.  The  strength  given  to  the  bad 
law  by  Lord  Robert  Montagu's  Act  in  1867  roused  its 
enemies  at  the  same  time ;  and,  feeling  that  my  task  was 
done,  I  left  the  contest  to  abler  hands. 

"I  thus  found  that  the  Association  I  had  inaugurated 
in  order  '  to  protect  the  health  of  poor  children,'  was 
being  made  into  an  instrument  to  bind  them  through 
their  mothers'  ignorance  to  the  most  wholesale  plan  for 
their  degeneration,  if  not  destruction,  ever  invented  by 
the  mind  of  man.  It  was  in  vain  that  I  tried  to  get  the 
ladies  of  the  Sanitary  Association  to  think  over  the 
matter.  I  was  always  met  by  the  remark  that  it  was  a 
medical  question  and  one  which  doctors  alone  could 
decide  ;  and  all  I  could  obtain  of  them  was  to  allow  me 
to  buy  up  the  offending  tract  and  to  remain  neutral  in 
the  question.  When  I  left  the  Association  a  few  years 
after,  the  tract  was  circulated  again. 

"  The  compulsory  law  seems  to  me  well  described  in 
these  words  of  Carlyle : — '  To  decree  injustice  by  a  law 
— inspired  prophets  have  long  since  seen,  what  every 
clear  soul  may  still  see,  that  of  all  Anarchies  and  Devil- 
worships  there  is  none  like  this  ;  that  this  is  the  "  throne 
of  iniquity"  set  up  in  the  name  of  the  Highest,  the 
human  apotheosis  of  Anarchy  itself.' " 

Dr.  Ballard's  essay  was  of  itself  a  notable  achievement. 
Written  in  defence  of  vaccination,  the  difficulties,  dangers 


THE  GATHERING  MOVEMENT— 1867-70.  549 

and  futility  of  the  practice  were  so  largely  revealed,  that 
any  thoughtful  reader  was  compelled  to  inquire,  Where 
shall  we  find  compensation  for  all  this  trouble,  these 
risks,  these  sufferings  ?  Dr.  Ballard's  essay  soon  ran  out 
of  print,  and  the  author  was  judiciously  enlisted  in  the 
medical  service  of  the  Local  Government  Board. 

In  Dr.  Garth  Wilkinson  the  movement  obtained  the 
assistance  not  only  of  an  able  physician,  but  of  one  whom 
Emerson  has  described  as  "  a  philosophic  critic,  with  a 
coequal  vigour  of  understanding  and  imagination  com- 
parable only  to  Lord  Bacon's ;"  and  "  with  a  rhetoric  like 
the  armoury  of  the  invincible  knights  of  old."  Having 
asked  Dr.  Wilkinson  how  he  came  over  to  the  side  we 
identify  with  sound  science  and  sound  sense, he  answered — 

"  The  early  History  of  my  Opposition  to  Vaccination 
is,  briefly,  this — I  had  not  considered  Vaccination  a 
question;  but  practised  it  when  required.  About  1865 
the  Countess  de  Noailles  assailed  my  conscience  on  the 
subject,  and  her  earnestness  forced  me  to  study  it.  She 
was  backed  by  the  late  Mrs.  Gibbs,  then  Miss  Griffiths. 
Through  Miss  Griffiths  I  sent  the  following  message  to 
Madame  de  Noailles — '  Tell  her  Ladyship  that  the  ques- 
tion is  comparatively  unimportant.  Vaccination  is  an 
infinitesimal  affair ;  its  reform  will  come  in  with  greater 
reforms.'  I  also  wrote  to  Madame  that  the  only  short 
way  of  getting  rid  of  the  Medical  vested  interest  was  by 
paying  half  a  million  or  a  million  of  money  down  to  the 
Profession,  and  buying  the  slaves,  the  people,  out,  as  the 
West  Indian  Blacks  were  bought  out. 

"  After-studies  extending  over  eighteen  years  have 
convinced  me  that  I  was  wrong  in  my  estimate  of  the 
smallness  of  the  Vaccination  question  compared  with 
other  Evils.  As  forced  upon  every  British  Cradle,  I  see 
it  as  a  Monster  instead  of  a  Poisonous  Midge ;  a  Devourer 
of  Nations.  As  a  Destroyer  of  the  Honesty  and  Humanity 
of  Medicine,  which  is  through  it  a  deeply-degraded  Pro- 
fession. As  a  Tyrant  which  is  the  Parent  of  a  brood  of 
Tyrants,  and  through  Pasteur  and  his  like  a  Universal 
Pollution  Master.  As  a  Ghoul  which  sits  upon  Parlia- 


550  VACCINATION. 


ment,  and  enforces  Contamination  by  Law,  and  prepares 
the  way  for  endless  violations  of  personal  liberty  and 
sound  sense  at  the  bidding  of  cruel  experts.  Not  denying 
other  forms  of  Social  Wickedness,  I  now,  after  careful 
study,  regard  Vaccination  as  one  of  the  greatest  and 
deepest  forms,  abolishing  the  last  hope  and  resort  of 
races,  the  new-born  soundness  of  the  Human  Body." 

The  agitation  against  compulsory  vaccination  prospered 
under  the  leadership  of  Mr.  Gibbs.  He  sought  help  on 
all  sides,  and  harmonised  its  various  elements  to  the 
common  purpose  of  the  League.  In  his  various  labours 
he  derived  efficient  assistance  from  his  brother,  Mr.  G.  S. 
Gibbs  of  Darlington,  who  displayed  remarkable  ability 
in  the  interpretation  of  vital  statistics  and  in  the  exposure 
of  their  misapplications.  Mr.  Gibbs  established  branches 
of  the  League  wherever  there  were  adversaries  of  the 
practice,  and  was  especially  successful  in  the  north  of 
England.  The  relentless  application  of  Sec.  31,  Act  '67, 
in  certain  parts  of  the  country  did  much  to  rouse  public 
attention  and  sympathy.  Parents  were  repeatedly  fined 
for  persistent  refusal  to  have  children  vaccinated,  and 
in  default  of  payment  had  their  property  seized,  or  were 
committed  to  prison,  sometimes  with  hard  labour.  Occa- 
sionally sentences  were  accompanied  with  gross  insolence 
from  the  bench.  For  example,  Mr.  Bowman  having 
pleaded  at  Newcastle  his  conscientious  conviction  that 
vaccination  might  prove  injurious  to  his  child,  whilst  it 
could  never  save  him  from  smallpox,  was  compared  to  a 
thief  by  the  magistrate,  who  said,  "  I  once  knew  a  man 
who  had  conscientious  scruples  against  working  so  long- 
as  he  could  live  by  stealing;  and  I  do  not  think  con- 
science of  that  sort  is  entitled  to  respect."  Law  on  such 
terms  naturally  invites  execration,  and  many  who  might 
hold  by  vaccination  are  thereby  turned  against  it. 

By  some  it  was  thought  questionable  whether  Sec.  31, 
Act  '67,  did  afford  warrant  for  repeated  prosecutions. 
Mr.  John  Candlish,  M.P.  for  Sunderland,  who  sat  on  the 
Committee  of  1866  which  dealt  with  the  Bill  which 
became  law  in  1867,  maintained  "  that  it  was  not  intended 


THE  GATHERING  MOVEMENT— 1867-70.  551 

that  penalties  should  be  repeated,  but  that  one  penalty 
should  be  a  discharge  from  any  obligation  to  submit  a 
child  to  vaccination."  It  is  needless  to  say,  an  Act  of 
Parliament  is  not  to  be  interpreted  by  the  intentions  of 
its  framers,  but  by  its  words.  Moreover,  if  intentions 
are  brought  into  question,  it  would  be  fair  to  set  inten- 
tions against  intentions.  Several  who  were  concerned 
in  promoting  the  Act  of  '67  had  intentions  more  arbitrary 
than  were  conveyed  in  Sec.  31. 

The  question  was  raised  by  the  Rev.  H.  J.  Allen, 
Primitive  Methodist.  He  had  been  repeatedy  before  the 
bench  at  St.  Neots,  and  was  committed  to  prison  for 
fourteen  days,  but,  having  paid  the  fine,  £5,  was  liberated. 
In  less  than  a  month,  he  was  summoned  again,  and  fined 
£1  for  each  of  his  children,  including  costs.  An  appeal 
was  made  to  the  Court  of  Queen's  Bench  in  1870,  and 
judgment  confirmed  the  severer  interpretation  of  Sec. 
31,  Act  '67.  Lord  Chief  Justice  Cockburn  held  that 
a  parent  having  been  fined  under  the  Act  for  disobeying 
an  order  to  have  his  child  vaccinated,  may  be  proceeded 
against  from  time  to  time  as  long  as  the  child  remains 
unvaccinated.  He  declined  to  discuss  whether  vaccina- 
tion was  good  or  bad ;  the  Legislature  had  treated  it  as 
a  matter  of  great  importance,  and  had  passed  Acts  to 
ensure  attention  to  it ;  that  being  so,  he  could  not  doubt 
that  the  intention  of  the  Legislature  was  not  merely  to 
impose  a  penalty  upon  a  person,  once  and  for  all,  for 
having  omitted  to  do  that  which  the  public  health  and 
safety  required ;  but  to  enforce  obedience  to  the  requisi- 
tions of  the  law.  He  thought,  therefore,  the  order  to 
vaccinate  might  be  renewed,  and  the  penalties  might  be 
repeated  until  the  order  was  obeyed.  Mr.  Justice  Mellor 
and  Mr.  Justice  Hannen  concurred.  The  judgment  in 
this  case,  known  as  Allen  v.  Worthy,  has  been  repeatedly 
questioned  and  always  reaffirmed. 

Immediately  after  Mr.  Candlish  introduced  a  Bill  to 
the  House  of  Commons  to  amend  the  law,  repeating  his 
conviction  that  the  construction  put  upon  the  Act  of  '67 
was  never  intended  by  Parliament,  and  that  it  was  by 


552  VACCINATION. 


mere  verbal  accident  that  penalties  were  made  continuous. 
The  Bill  was  introduced  too  late  in  the  session  (6th  July, 
1870)  to  be  carried,  but  it  led  to  discussion  and  a  promise 
from  Government  that  the  question  would  be  remitted 
to  a  Committee  next  year,  1871. 


CHAPTER  XLIII. 

HOUSE   OF   COMMONS   COMMITTEE,    1871. 

ON  13th  February,  1871,  Mr.  W.  E.  Forster  moved  that 
a  Select  Committee  be  appointed  to  inquire  into  the 
operation  of  the  Vaccination  Act  of  1867,  and  to  report 
whether  such  Act  should  be  amended.  Mr.  Forster's 
remarks  on  the  occasion  are  noteworthy,  as  manifesting 
the  prevalent  prejudice.  He  said — 

I  make  the  motion  in  compliance  with  a  promise  made  to  the 
Member  for  Snnderland  last  session,  who  had  brought  in  a  Bill  to 
relax  the  punishment  for  refusal  to  permit  Vaccination.  I  do  not 
imagine  that  Mr.  Candlish,  more  than  any  other  member  of  the 
House,  has  the  slightest  doubt  of  the  utility  and  necessity  of  Vac- 
cination, and  that  it  is  necessary  not  only  to  encourage  the  practice, 
but  to  make  it  compulsory.  Opposition  to  Vaccination  is  not  heard 
in  the  House  of  Commons;  but  it  is  found,  I  am  sorry  to  eay, 
among  certain  persons  in  the  country,  who  have  carried  their 
resistance  to  an  extent  that  has  been  injurious  to  health  and 
destructive  to  life.  [Evolution  this  from  Forster's  fancy.]  These 
people  must  have  forgotten  the  state  of  the  country  before  Vaccina- 
tion was  introduced. 

Then  followed  the  usual  fabulous  matter  of  rote — the 
awful  mortality  prior  to  vaccination,  the  reduction  of 
that  mortality  by  vaccination,  the  extraordinary  im- 
munity enjoyed  by  the  vaccinated  and  revaccinated,  and 
so  forth — uttered  and  accepted  as  indisputable. 

The  Government  do  not  entertain  any  doubt  of  the  efficacy 
and  advantages  of  Vaccination,  nor  of  the  necessity  of  enforcing  it. 
They  have  to  contend"  with  opposition — the  opposition  of  ignorance, 
and  also,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  with  the  opposition  arising  from 
interested  motives  [What  possibly  could  they  be  ?]  preying  upon  tha 
ignorance  ;  and  lastly,  with  the  great  neglect  arising  from  apathy 


HOUSE  OF  COMMONS  COMMITTEE,  1871.  553 

Sir  Charles  Adder-ley  opposed  the  appointment  of  the 
Committee.  Accepting  Mr.  Forster's  statement  as  valid, 
he  demanded — 

What  is  there  to  inquire  about?  Inquiry  that  is  superfluous 
may  be  mischievous.  Nothing  can  be  more  dangerous  than  to 
affect  doubtfulness  concerning  legislation  as  to  which  there  is  not 
only  no  doubt,  but  a  call  for  more  rigorous  administration. 

Apparently  the  Government  were  of  the  same  mind  as 
Sir  Charles,  and  the  Committee  was  conceded  in  fulfil- 
ment of  an  inadvertent  pledge.  Mr.  Forster  assured  the 
House — 

The  Government  do  not  propose  this  Committee  with  the  slightest 
doubt  about  the  principle  of  Vaccination,  or  the  necessity  of  Com- 
pulsory Vaccination;  and  I  need  not  say  we  have  no  intention  of 
relaxing  the  operation  of  the  law  during  the  deliberations  of  the 
Committee. 

The  Committee  was  nominated  as  follows  on  16th 
February — 

Dr.  BREWER,  Colchester. 

Mr.  JACOB  BRIGHT,  Manchester. 

Mr.  JOHN  CANDLISH,  Sunderland. 

Mr.  R  M.  CARTER,  Leeds. 

Mr.  STEPHEN  CAVE,  Shoreham. 

Sir  SMITH  CHILD,  West  Staffordshire. 

Sir  DOMINIC  CORRIGAN,  Dublin. 

Mr.  W.  E.  FOKSTER,  Bradford. 

Mr.  J.  T.  HIBBERT,  Oldham. 

Mr.  J.  M.  HOLT,  North-East  Lancashire. 

Lord  ROBERT  MONTAGU,  Huntingdonshire. 

Mr.  P.  H.  MUNTZ,  Birmingham. 

Dr.  LYON  PLAYFAIR,  Edinburgh  University. 

Mr.  W.  H.  SMITH,  Westminster. 

Mr.  P.  A.  TAYLOR,  Leicester. 

The  first  witness  examined  was  Mr.  Candlish,  himself 
a  member  of  the  Committee  and  promoter  of  the  inquiry. 
Whilst  professing  a  limited  faith  in  vaccination,  and 
willing  to  exercise  a  degree  of  pressure  sufficient  to  over- 
come mere  apathy,  Mr.  Candlish  was  strongly  opposed 
to  the  compulsion  of  parents  who  seriously  objected  to 


554 


VACCINATION. 


vaccination,  and  especially  to  their  persecution   by  re- 
peated penalties  and  imprisonment. 

Dr.  W.  J.  Collins,  the  next  witness,  opened  the  entire 
question  of  vaccination,  and  by  a  variety  of  experience 
showed  that  the  vaccine  disease  neither  superseded  nor 
mitigated  smallpox,  whilst  it  was  frequently  a  severe 
ailment  and  the  means  of  exciting  and  conveying  other 
diseases. 

Dr.  C.-  T.  Pearce  followed  suit.  The  purpose  of  the 
Committee  (limited  to  the  consideration  of  the  com- 
pulsory law)  was  apparently  forgotten,  and  Dr.  Pearce 
delivered  a  comprehensive  discourse,  in  which  the  history, 
claims,  failure,  fallacies,  and  disasters  of  vaccination  were 
freely  displayed ;  and  in  the  cross-examination  which 
followed  made  good  the  positions  he  had  assumed. 

Sir  Jervoise  Clarke  Jervoise,  Bart.,  formerly  M.P.  for 
South  Hants,  disputed  the  common  notions  of  infection 
as  confused  with  contagion,  and  pointed  out  that  it  was 
absurd  to  draw  comparisons  between  the  vaccinated  and 
unvaccinated  unless  their  pecuniary  status  were  at  the 
same  time  defined:  cases  of  smallpox  in  Belgravia  were 
not  to  be  likened  to  cases  in  Clerkenwell.  Smallpox  was 
not  mitigated  by  vaccination :  he  had  two  relatives 
vaccinated  by  Jenner  himself  who  subsequently  had 
confluent  smallpox  so  severely  that  "  their  own  father  did 
not  know  them."  Nor  if  smallpox  had  diminished  was 
there  any  reason  to  ascribe  it  to  vaccination :  Jenner's 
cowpox  had  ceased  out  of  the  land,  and  the  cause  of  its 
cessation  might  equally  apply  to  smallpox. 

Dr.  Garth  Wilkinson  gave  evidence  with  the  char- 
acteristic wisdom  of  the  physician  of  genius  who  sees 
with  his  own  eyes.  He  showed  how,  endowed  and 
lucrative,  the  futility  and  mischief  of  vaccination  were 
concealed  or  denied,  and  how,  considered  all  sufficient 
against  smallpox,  the  causes  of  the  disease  were  over- 
looked, and  the  introduction  of  improved  methods  of 
treatment  were  unattempted  or  discouraged. 

Mr.  George  S.  Gibbs  contested  the  right  of  the  State 
to  inflict  vaccination,  or  to  interfere  between  parent  and 


HOUSE  OF  COMMONS  COMMITTEE,  1871. 

child.  Having  a  faculty  for  statistics,  he  had  applied 
himself  to  the  records  of  smallpox  before  and  since  the 
practice  of  vaccination,  at  home  and  abroad,  and  showed 
that  smallpox  was  the  same  at  present  as  in  the  past, 
neither  more  mortal  nor  less  mortal,  while  there  was 
reason  to  believe  that  vaccination  was  a  breeder  of 
smallpox  as  well  as  a  source  and  excitant  of  other 
maladies. 

Mr.  Aaron  Emery  related  in  vigorous  English  how  an 
infant  of  his  had  been  vaccinated  from  a  healthy-looking 
child  on  31st  May,  1869;  how  erysipelas  followed;  how 
it  gradually  got  worse ;  how  "  the  little  fellow  had  no 
rest  night  nor  day  from  9th  June  to  4th  July,  when 
death  put  an  end  to  his  sufferings."  Then  he  told  the 
difficulty  he  had  to  obtain  a  true  certificate  of  death  from 
the  vaccinator ;  how  he  forced  an  inquest;  how  a  verdict 
was  returned,  "Died  from  erysipelas  caused  by  vaccina- 
tion"; and  how  its  terms  wrere  subsequently  altered  by 
Coroner  Lankester  and  registered  as  altered  at  Somerset 
House.  Up  to  the  time  of  this  fatality,  Mr.  Emery  had 
been  an  unsuspicious  believer  in  vaccination ;  but  his 
sorrow  led  him  to  acquaintance  with  numerous  cases  like 
his  own,  screened  from  public  recognition,  any  artifice 
being  accounted  laudable  which  seemed  necessary  to 
preserve  vaccination  from  reproach. 

Mr.  F.  Covington,  secretary  of  the  Northampton  Anti- 
Vaccination  League,  described  injuries  from  vaccination 
in  his  family  and  among  his  acquaintance ;  the  distrust 
and  dislike  of  the  practice  in  Northampton  with  wide- 
spread resistance  to  the  compulsory  law. 

Mrs.  E.  Kemp  brought  her  baby,  and  told  how  it  had 
been  vaccinated  without  examination,  although  there 
was  a  sore  on  the  side  of  its  head.  As  the  vaccination 
began  to  take,  the  child's  face  and  ears  broke  out,  until 
through  the  mass  of  eruption  "  you  could  only  see  its 
little  eyes." 

Mr.  Thomas  Baker,  barrister,  had  been  engaged  in  the 
Board  of  Health  from  1849  to  1854,  and  officially  con- 
nected with  several  sanitary  inquiries.  In  his  opinion 


VACCINATION. 


what  were  called  epidemics  were  fevers  with  a  common 
origin,  against  which  cleanliness  was  the  efficient  pro- 
phylactic, and  to  which  his  friend,  Dr.  Southwood  Smith, 
held  smallpox  was  equally  amenable.  As  a  shareholder 
in  the  Metropolitan  Association  for  the  Improvement 
of  the  Dwellings  of  the  Industrial  Classes,  he  knew 
that  residents  in  wholesome  houses,  even  in  insanitary 
neighbourhoods,  enjoyed  remarkable  exemption  from 
epidemic  maladies. 

Mr.  W.  J.  Addison  testified  that  his  perfectly  healthy 
child  had  had  syphilis  invaccinated,  and  had  died  in 
consequence  after  horrible  suffering.  The  facts  of  the 
case  were  beyond  question.  One  hospital  doctor  had  the 
temerity  to  ask  the  mother,  "  Whether  is  it  not  better  for 
one  in  a  thousand  to  die  like  this  than  have  smallpox 
raging  about  our  towns."  "  Possibly,"  replied  the  poor 
woman,  "  but  it  is  strange  that  my  child  should  be  the 
thousandth." 

The  Rev.  Wm.  Hume-Rothery  said  his  attention  was 
first  drawn  to  vaccination  by  the  operation  on  his  own 
child,  his  wife  observing  instinctively,  "This  is  an 
unnatural  and  wrong  thing."  Investigation  confirmed 
his  wife's  judgment,  and  he  became  an  open  opponent  of 
the  practice,  writing  and  lecturing  against  it.  His 
acquaintance  with  the  people  in  Lancashire  had  led  him 
to  the  conviction  that  the  majority  disliked  and  distrusted 
vaccination  :  they  were  coerced  to  its  observance,  and 
evaded  it  when  possible.  He  himself  was  opposed  to 
vaccination  because  there  was  nothing  in  nature,  human 
nature,  or  revelation  to  justify  it.  This  assertion  of 
principle  over  and  above  practice  led  to  considerable  dis- 
cussion as  to  divine  law,  providence,  and  the  nature  of 
things,  and  the  right  of  conscience  to  withstand  corporate 
dictation. 

Mr.  R  B.  Gibbs,  secretary  of  the  Anti-Compulsory 
Vaccination  League,  referred  to  the  origin  of  vaccination, 
as  attested  by  Jenner,  in  the  production  of  cowpox  from 
the  contagion  of  horsegrease,  and  subsequently  to  the 
use  of  horsepox,  by  which  equination  was  substituted  for 


HOUSE  OF  COMMONS  COMMITTEE,  1871.  557 

vaccination ;  the  diverse  virus  thus  derived  from  Jenner 
continuing  in  official  arm-to-arm  currency  to  the  present 
day.  What  vaccination  was  had  never  been  determined  ; 
and  consequently  there  had  been  no  proper  basis  for 
legislation.  Nor  had  legislation  been  preceded  by  im- 
partial and  adequate  inquiry :  it  had  been  promoted  by 
certain  medical  men,  supported  by  the  press,  and  especially 
by  The  Times,  the  editors  of  which  jealously  suppressed 
all  communications  which  impugned  the  efficacy  of  the 
rite.  Interrogated  as  to  the  amendment  of  the  law,  Mr. 
Gibbs  said  he  had  no  amendment  to  propose :  the  State 
should  withdraw  all  assistance  from  the  practice,  and 
leave  its  use  or  disuse  to  individual  discretion. 

At  this  point  the  evidence  of  the  anti-vaccinists  was 
cut  short.  They  had  much  more  to  produce,  but  enough 
had  been  heard.  The  Committee  had  forgotten  its  pur- 
pose, which  was  not  to  discuss  vaccination,  but,  accepting 
the  rite  as  unquestionable,  to  consider  whether  the  law 
which  enforced  it  was  capable  of  amendment.  Still,  the 
mischief  being  done,  it  was  thought  advisable  to  count- 
eract it ;  and  forthwith  contrary  testimony  was  laid  on. 
Various  officials  who  for  years  had  made  the  promotion 
of  vaccination  their  business  were  summoned  to  the 
rescue,  along  with  certain  fashionable  physicians,  whose 
assurance,  it  was  calculated,  would  overcome  any  distrust 
that  might  be  excited  in  the  public  mind. 

The  first  of  the  officials  was  Mr.  John  Simon,  a  review 
of  whose  Papers  on  Vaccination  forms  Chapter  XL.  of 
the  present  volume.  Evidence  from  Mr.  Simon  relative 
to  vaccination  was  of  much  the  same  order  as  that  of  a 
Yirginian  of  former  days  on  slavery,  or  a  thriving  London 
publican  on  the  liquor  traffic.  Mr.  Simon  answered  to 
the  demand  upon  him  :  he  was  thorough  :  there  was 
nothing  like  leather — nothing !  Smallpox  was  among 
the  most  contagious  and  most  fatal  of  pestilences,  and 
"for  an  overwhelming  majority  of  persons,  well  vaccinated 
in  infancy,  vaccination  was  a  security  for  life  against 
even  an  attack  of  smallpox."  The  un vaccinated  died  at 
the  rate  of  35  J  per  cent.;  the  vaccinated  in  general  at  7 


558  VACCINATION. 


per  cent.;  and  "the  properly  vaccinated"  at  from  1  to  J 
per  cent. — the  fact  being  concealed  that  in  times  when 
all  were  un vaccinated,  the  smallpox  death-rate  ranged 
from  10  to  18  per  cent.,  the  same  overhead  death-rate  of 
vaccinated  and  unvaccinated  at  this  day.  There  had 
never  been,  he  believed,  a  case  of  death  from  the  direct 
effect  of  "  properly  performed  vaccination" — the  qualifica- 
tion, it  will  be  observed,  referring  all  cases  of  death  to 
something  other  than  the  correct  rite.  He  admitted 
there  was  not  the  least  doubt  that  syphilis  had  been 
invaccinated  on  the  Continent,  but  either  from  careless- 
ness or  culpable  intention.  Sanitation,  he  said,  had 
little  or  no  influence  on  smallpox :  vaccination  was  the 
only  protective — which  variety  of  vaccination  being 
judiciously  left  undefined.  Smallpox  did  not  displace 
other  fevers  during  its  prevalence,  as  alleged  by  Dr. 
Pearce.  Holding  that  97  per  cent,  of  Londoners  were 
vaccinated,  he  did  not  see  that  the  epidemic  then  raging, 
the  severest  of  the  century,  disproved  the  security  asserted 
for  vaccination. 

As  we  read  Simon's  evidence,  we  realise  afresh  the 
possibilities  of  audacity  operating  on  credulity  :  there  is 
nothing  that  men,  otherwise  sane,  may  not  believe  when 
their  disposition  is  set  toward  belief.  This  Committee 
sat  in  London  amid  a  population,  almost  universally 
vaccinated,  suffering  from  smallpox  as  they  never  had 
suffered  within  living  memory ;  and  yet  in  presence  of 
such  a  demonstration  of  the  impotence  of  the  vaccine 
ordinance,  they  listened  to  the  soothsayer  with  abject 
acquiescence !  Strange  as  are  the  records  of  witchcraft, 
there  is  nothing  in  them  more  marvellous  than  this  1871 
Committee  of  select  men  from  the  House  of  Commons 
taking  for  true  what  under  their  own  eyes  was  visible  as 
untrue — deceived  and  consenting  to  be  deceived. 

As  for  those  who  disputed  the  efficacy  of  vaccination, 
and  justified  their  disbelief  by  smallpox  among  the 
vaccinated,  Simon's  contempt  was  unqualified — contempt 
being  essential  to  the  success  of  the  part  enacted.  "  Some 
of  them  were  -ignorant,"  he  said,  "  and  others  dishonest." 


HOUSE  OF  COMMONS  COMMITTEE,  1871.  559 

They  were  a  "  league  of  persons  interested  in  interrupting 
the  fulfilment  of  the  law,  and  very  actively  engaged  in 
disseminating  falsehoods  against  vaccination " — false- 
hoods in  its  favour  actively  disseminated  by  Simon  and 
his  trade-union  being  disinterested  and  praiseworthy. 

Dr.  R  Hall  Bakewell,  vaccinator-general  for  Trinidad, 
was  somehow  produced  by  mistake,  his  evidence  being 
in  several  respects  the  reverse  of  what  was  wanted.  He 
thought  vaccination  good,  but  that  "it  should  be  done  in 
a  more  careful  manner."  It  ought  not  to  be  compulsory, 
but  left  to  the  good  sense  of  the  people.  Having  been 
proved  to  cause  death,  "  it  was  unjust  to  oblige  a  parent 
to  submit  his  child  to  an  operation  attended  with  such 
risk,  however  rare."  Referring  to  his  experience  in 
Trinidad,  he  said — 

3557. — I  have  seen  Vaccination  produce  inflammation  of  the  arm 
and  general  fever  lasting  for  several  days.  Such  illness  was  often 
alleged  as  an  excuse  by  mothers  for  not  bringing  their  children  for 
inspection  on  the  8th  day.  At  first  I  was  inclined  to  regard  the 
assertion  as  a  mere  excuse,  but  on  visiting  the  homes  I  found  the 
children  were  really  ill,  and  that  it  was  not  safe  to  bring  them  for 
inspection. 

3563. — There  is  a  strong  opinion  prevalent  in  Trinidad,  and  in 
the  West  Indies  generally,  that  Leprosy  has  been  introduced  to 
the  system  by  Vaccination.  I  found  that  medical  men  when  they 
had  occasion  to  vaccinate  their  own  children,  or  those  of  patients 
in  whom  they  were  specially  interested,  applied  to  me  for  English 
lymph  in  order  to  avoid  the  invaccination  of  Leprosy,  notwith- 
standing there  was  an  equal,  and  probably  a  greater,  chance  of  the 
English  lymph  being  contaminated  with  Syphilis.  I  had  several 
cases  of  Leprosy  in  which  Vaccination  seemed  the  only  means  of 
accounting  for  the  disease. 

As  a  consequence  of  this  prevalent  opinion,  vaccination 
was  much  disliked  in  Trinidad,  and,  although  by  law 
compulsory,  was  indifferently  enforced,  so  that  at  least 
half  the  population  escaped  unvaccinated. 

Interrogated  concerning  smallpox  in  Trinidad,  Dr. 
Bakewell  said  there  had  been  no  epidemic  for  fourteen 
or  fifteen  years  when  one  occurred  "  frightfully  severe, 
as  are  all  epidemics  in  Trinidad,  owing  to  the  entire 
neglect  of  sanitary  precautions " ;  adding  that  "  the 


560  VACCINATION. 


mortality  from  smallpox  may  be  greatly  diminished  by 
sanitary  measures  independently  of  vaccination."  The 
Doctor  still  further  ruffled  the  prejudices  of  the  Com- 
mittee in  asserting — 

3783. — I  do  not  believe  that  the  general  mortality  of  the  country 
is  at  all  diminished  by  the  absence  of  Smallpox.  In  Trinidad,  for 
instance,  our  mortality  is  none  the  less  because  we  have  neither 
Smallpox,  nor  Whooping  Cough,  nor  Scarlet  Fever,  nor  Measles — 
the  four  most  prolific  causes  of  death  among  young  children. 
Nevertheless  infant  mortality  in  Port  of  Spain  is  double  that  of 
London.  By  merely  cutting  off  one  disease  from  the  category  of 
diseases,  you  do  not  lessen  the  mortality  of  a  country — 

Precisely  what  Dr.  Watt  proved  of  Glasgow  in  1813, 
and  Dr.  Farr  at  a  later  date  confirmed ;  and  what  the 
comparison  of  the  statistics  of  mortality  in  epidemic  and 
non-epidemic  years  everywhere  illustrates. 

With  the  examination  of  Mr.  Danby  Palmer  Fry,  head 
of  the  legal  department  of  the  Poor  Law  Board,  the 
Committee  reverted  to  its  proper  function.  Questioned 
as  to  the  state  of  the  law  and  the  difficulties  connected 
with  its  administration,  Mr.  Fry  showed  that  whilst 
vaccination  was  nominally  compulsory,  any  resolute 
parent  might  disregard  it.  To  make  vaccination  really 
compulsory,  it  would  be  necessary  to  legislate  for  its 
application  by  force,  which  legislation  public  opinion 
would  not  tolerate.  For  himself,  he  thought  that  parental 
conviction  adverse  to  vaccination  was  entitled  to  respect, 
and  he  therefore  suggested— 

3845. — That  it  might,  perhaps,  be  worthy  of  consideration  whether 
a  man  might  not  be  exempted  from  the  penalty  who  takes  an  oath 
or  makes  an  affirmation  that  he  has  a  conscientious  objection  to 
the  vaccination  of  his  child.  It  seems  to  me  that  this  would  be 
similar  in  principle  to  the  statutes  which  prohibited  the  Eccles- 
iastical Courts  from  issuing  execution  against  the  person  of  a 
Quaker,  though  they  might  do  so  against  his  goods,  on  the  express 
ground  that  the  people  called  Quakers  were  known  to  entertain 
conscientious  objections  to  the  payment  of  tithes  and  church  rates. 

Sir  Dominic  Corrigan,  M.D.,  a  member  of  the  Com- 
mittee, next  gave  evidence,  and  the  defence  of  vaccination 


HOUSE  OF  COMMONS  COMMITTEE,  1871.  561 

was  resumed.     So  little  did  Sir  Dominic  apprehend  the 
purpose  of  the  Committee  that  he  observed — 

3992. — I  think  the  great  question  before  us  is  whether  vaccine 
poison  can  contain  within  itself  syphilitic  poison  or  any  other 
poison. 

As  to  the  in  vaccination  of  syphilis,  he  was  clear:  it 
was  impossible.  Vaccination  induced  no  disease.  Virus 
was  nothing  but  pure  lymph,  even  when  taken  from  an 
impure  subject.  Vaccination  was  regarded  with  favour 
throughout  Ireland.  It  was  enforced,  but  it  required  no 
enforcement :  there  was  no  disposition  to  resist  the  law. 
He  disliked  penalties,  and  would  rather  operate  by  ex- 
cluding the  unvaccinated  from  schools,  factories,  and 
public  employments,  on  the  ground  that  "  they  might 
become  a  mine  of  disease  and  injure  others,"  namely, 
to  the  vaccinated  fortified  against  smallpox ! 

Smallpox  had  been  gradually  declining  in  Ireland 
under  the  influence  of  vaccination,  and  the  disease  was 
then,  28th  April,  1871,  practically  extinct.  Foolhardy 
was  the  assertion.  Even  while  Sir  Dominic  was  testify- 
ing, smallpox  had  reappeared  :  665  died  of  it  in  1871  and 
3,248  in  1872.  From  1871  to  1875  there  perished  5,521 
of  smallpox  in  a  land  from  which  it  was  claimed  vaccina- 
tion had  banished  the  disease  ! 

Mr.  James  Furness  Marson  followed  Sir  Dominic — a 
fanatical  vaccinator  and  promoter  of  compulsion.  For 
thirty-five  years  surgeon  of  the  Highgate  Smallpox 
Hospital,  he  had  there  elaborated  the  whimsical  notion 
that  the  efficacy  of  vaccination  was  measured  by  the 
number  and  character  of  the  cicatrices ;  holding  that — 

4149. — A  large  number  of  the  people  in  this  country  are  very 
badly  vaccinated,  having  but  one  cicatrix  hardly  perceptible,  and 
have  Smallpox  as  bad  as  if  they  had  never  been  vaccinated  at  all. 

Confronted  by  Mr.  Jacob  Bright  with  the  fact  that 
Dr.  Gregory,  of  wide  experience  and  admitted  authority, 
had  expressed  the  contrary  opinion  in  his  work  on 

Eruptive  Fevers,  saying — 

4670. — Hence  we  may  learn  how  small  importance  is  to  be 
attached  to  the  cicatrix  as  an  evidence  of  the  perfection  or  imperfec- 
36 


562  VACCINATION. 


tion  of  the  vaccine  process.  Perfect  security  is  compatible  with  a 
small  and  scarcely  distinguishable  cicatrix  or  without  a  large  wafery 
cicatrix  at  all ;  at  least  none  perceptible  five  years  after  the 
operation — 

Marson  made  answer — 

Dr.  Gregory  was  an  authority ;  but  he  was  a  very  singular  man 
indeed,  and  had  never  investigated  the  subject  in  the  extensive 
way  I  have. 

Marson  was  the  victim  of  a  notion,  and  that  a  poor 
one,  to  which  whatever  stood  in  opposition  was  sacrificed. 
Among  his  assertions  and  admissions,  the  following  are 
characteristic  and  illustrative — 

4151. — If  all  children  were  properly  vaccinated,  the  mortality 
from  Smallpox  would  be  less  than  1  per  cent.  There  are  diffi- 
culties :  there  is  the  opposition  of  mothers  to  having  their  children 
well  vaccinated. 

4125. — Persons  who  catch  Smallpox  after  being  vaccinated  do 
not  generally  have  it  until  18  to  25  years  afterwards. 

4220. — Smallpox  itself  is  a  much  greater  protection  from  Small- 
pox than  Vaccination. 

4136. — Certainly  Smallpox  has  no  tendency  to  die  out :  it  is 
precisely  the  same  disease  it  was  a  thousand  years  ago,  and  will 
be  a  thousand  years  hence. 

4148. — We  have  no  control  over  Smallpox  :  there  is  no  specific. 
We  have  no  power  whatever  of  controlling  Smallpox,  Scarlatina, 
Measles,  and  other  febrile  eruptive  affections. 

4694. — I  look  upon  hospitals  as  necessary  evils.  They  are  not 
places  I  would  recommend  the  sick  to  go  to.  Anybody  who  can 
afford  to  keep  in  his  house  should  not  go  to  an  hospital. 

4327-28. — Dr.  Jenner  was  wrong  when  he  said  Cowpox  was 
derived  from  Horsegrease :  it  was  supposed  so  at  one  time,  but 
that  is  set  aside  now. 

4325  and  4697. — I  have  two  sources  of  vaccine  lymph  ;  one  from 
the  inoculation  of  a  cow  with  Smallpox,  and  the  other  from  a  cow 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Brussels  which  had  Cowpox  in  the  natural 
way. 

4646. — There  was  no  epidemic  of  Smallpox  in  London  from  1796 
to  1825 ;  and  as  the  absence  of  Smallpox  was  contemporaneous 
with  the  introduction  of  Vaccination,  it  was  imagined  that  Vaccina- 
tion had  a  great  deal  to  do  with  it ;  and  it  was  a  fair  conclusion. 

4705. — Smallpox  was  raging  to  a  great  extent  in  the  east  of 
London  before  the  French  war  broke  out — 

Yet  it  is  customary  to  ascribe  the  Smallpox  epidemic 
of  1870-71  to  the  Franco-German  war. 


HOUSE  OF  COMMONS  COMMITTEE,  1871. 

The  unscrupulous  ferocity  which  animated  Marson 
and  his  associates  toward  those  who  impugned  their 
practice  is  forcibly  displayed  in  the  following  questions 
and  answers ;  premising  that  Simon  attested  of  Marson 
that  "  he  was  a  singularly  careful  observer  " — 

4174. — I  suppose  you  are  aware  there  is  a  strong  feeling  and  a 
great  objection  on  the  part  of  a  number  of  people  against  Vaccina- 
tion? 

Yes,  I  know  there  is;  but  I  nearly  always  find  that  it  is  the 
father  who  objects  and  not  the  mother;  and  it  makes  it  very 
suspicious. 

4175. — What  do  you  mean  ? 

The  father  would  like  the  family  as  small  as  possible  that  he  has 
to  work  for.  I  am  afraid  that  is  at  the  bottom  of  it. 

4176. — Do  you  not  think  that  is  giving  credit  to  the  father  for 
looking  much  further  ahead  than  people  in  that  class  of  life 
generally  do  ? 

I  do  not  think  they  have  very  far  to  look  when  they  have  their 
daily  bread  to  earn.  When  the  wages  come  in  on  Saturday  night, 
it  pretty  often  comes  to  their  mind  how  the  money  is  disposed  of — 

A  libel  as  atrocious  as  absurd,  and  significant. 

Dr.  Alexander  Wood  was  brought  from  Edinburgh  to 
give  evidence  as  to  Scotland  of  much  the  same  tenor  as 
that  of  Sir  Dominic  Corrigan  concerning  Ireland.  Dr. 
Wood's  note  was  clear — "  I  do  not  think,"  he  said,  "  that 
a  person  has  a  right  to  keep  an  unvaccinated  child  any 
more  than  to  keep  a  mad  dog."  Smallpox  had  been 
prevalent  in  Scotland  for  some  years,  and  had  been  made 
use  of  to  pass  a  Compulsory  Vaccination  Act  in  1863 ; 
but  it  was  neither  shown  that  prior  to  that  Act  the 
Scots  were  unvaccinated,  nor  that  it  was  the  unvaccinated 
who  suffered  from  smallpox — apart  from  those  conditions 
of  life  which  make  for  smallpox.  In  the  course  of  nature, 
smallpox  abated  in  Scotland,  and  the  Act  had  the  credit 
of  the  abatement :  the  vaccination  of  the  people  being  so 
complete  that  Dr.  Wood  testified — 

4399. — There  would  not  be  an  unvaccinated  child  in  Scotland  if 
we  had  some  means  of  overtaking  the  migratory  population — the 
railway  navvies  and  tramps,  the  children  born  by  the  roadside  and 
under  hedges. 

As  in  Ireland,  there  was  little  or  no  resistance  to  the 


564  VACCINATION. 


law;  and  as  in  Ireland,  it  was  asserted  that  smallpox 
had  been  stamped  out ;  but  as  in  Ireland,  the  assumption 
was  nullified  by  experience.  In  the  epidemic  of  1871-73, 
there  died  of  smallpox  no  fewer  than  5034  in  Vaccinated 
Scotland — a  contradiction  unforeseen  by  Dr.  Wood  and 
the  Committee  before  whom  he  prophesied. 

Sir  William  Jenner  appeared  as  court  physician.  He 
had  advised  Her  Majesty  the  Queen  to  encourage  vac- 
cination in  the  case  of  all  the  members  of  the  Royal 
Family,  and  Her  Majesty  had  complied  with  his  advice, 
and  the  Prince  of  Wales  too.  He  had  had  great  experi- 
ence as  physician  to  the  Children's  Hospital  and  else- 
where, and  had  never  seen  any  serious  illness  or  death 
result  from  vaccination.  His  testimony  as  to  the  harm- 
lessness  of  the  practice  was  unqualified,  and  he  was 
"  unable  to  conceive  of  any  medical  practitioner  of  stand- 
ing disbelieving  in  it,  or  thinking  it  mischievous " ; 
adding — 

4521. — I  should  consider  I  was  very  much  wanting  in  my  duty, 
and,  in  fact,  deserving  of  punishment,  if  I  neglected  to  have  my 
six  children  vaccinated. 

He  approved  of  the  compulsory  law,  and  wished  that 
revaccination  was  likewise  compulsory.  As  to  the  sta- 
tistics of  smallpox  and  vaccination,  he  disowned  sufficient 
acquaintance ;  nevertheless  he  did  not  hesitate  to  assert 
that  smallpox,  as  a  form  of  zymotic  disease  displacing 
other  forms,  or  replaced  by  others,  was  "  a  theory  utterly 
without  foundation."  Of  course  testimony  of  this  order 
was  produced  for  social  rather  than  scientific  ends. 

The  like  was  true  of  Dr.  Gull,  now  Sir  William.  He 
also  professed  to  have  never  seen  any  serious  illness 
caused  by  vaccination ;  nor  did  he  believe  that  vaccin- 
ation from  a  diseased  child  would  communicate  disease. 
As  a  defence  against  smallpox,  he  held  that  vaccination 
was  as  protective  as  smallpox  itself.  It  was  the  duty  of 
the  Legislature  to  enforce  vaccination ;  adding — 

4830. — That  with  our  present  knowledge,  I  should  think  it  the 
most  insane  thing  that  any  human  creature  could  think  of  to  give 
up  Vaccination. 


HOUSE  OF  COMMONS  COMMITTEE,  1871.  565 

He  had  advised  the  Government  to  accept  no  one  for 
service  in  India  without  revaccination.  Asked  by  Mr. 
Candlish  whether  he  would  take  a  child  by  force  from 
its  parents  and  vaccinate  it,  he  replied — 

4854. — I  certainly  would;  just  as  I  would  take  an  ignorant 
child  and  have  it  educated. 

Less  judicious  than  Sir  William  Jenner,  Dr.  Gull 
adventured  on  statistics.  It  having  been  pointed  out 
that  though  smallpox  was  then  epidemic  in  London,  the 
death-rate  was  not  raised  thereby,  he  attributed  the 
result  to  vaccination.  "  In  former  times  smallpox  pro- 
duced an  enormous  increase  in  mortality" — 

4780. — I  think  we  read  of  100,000  people  dying  of  the  disease  in 
epidemics,  and  I  am  not  sure  that  it  was  not  double  the  number.  I 
hardly  like  to  trust  myself  as  to  numbers,  but  when  I  was  a  pro- 
fessor of  medicine  at  Guy's  Hospital,  I  brought  those  numbers 
before  my  class,  and  I  was  astonished  at  the  enormous  number  of 
deaths  in  a  Smallpox  epidemic.  I  remember  that  taking  all  the 
deaths  which  had  occurred  in  the  wars  of  Napoleon,  they  were  not 
so  many  by  any  means  as  the  number  of  lives  which  had  been 
saved  by  Vaccination  at  that  time.  I  do  not  remember,  at  the 
moment,  the  authority  for  that  statement,  but  I  remember  that 
that  was  the  kind  of  evidence  that  I  had  to  bring  before  the  class. 

Verily  the  class  at  Guy's  had  romance  for  science,  and 
the  Committee  had  similar  entertainment.  They  were 
told  that  except  for  vaccination  the  epidemic  then  pre- 
valent in  London  would  result  "  in  a  perfect  pestilence  "; 
for  mortality  among  unvaccinated  populations  "had  been 
something  terrific."  They  had  "  the  history  of  smallpox 
in  China  and  India,  where  its  effects  had  been  perfectly 
depopulating."  "  To  neglect  or  discourage  vaccination 
in  their  crowded  English  towns  would  be  much  the  same 
as  thrusting  a  fire-brand  into  a  powder  magazine." 
Before  the  introduction  of  vaccination,  "France  lost 
year  after  year  a  quarter  of  a  million  of  inhabitants 
(250,000)  by  smallpox ";  and  so  forth  and  so  forth ; 
assertions  without  warrant  outside  the  intention  to  ex- 
cite fear  in  order  to  obtain  confidence. 

The  next  witness  was  Dr.  Charles  West,  for  twenty 
years  physician  to  the  Hospital  for  Children,  London, 


566  VACCINATION. 


where  children  under  two  years  old  were  not  received — 
at  ages  when  the  immediate  effects  of  vaccination  are 
obliterated  or  forgotten.  Vaccination,  in  his  opinion, 
prevented  or  mitigated  smallpox.  "It  had,  no  doubt, 
the  effect  in  many  cases  of  developing  a  disposition  to 
some  forms  of  skin  disease,  especially  eczema;"  but  on 
the  whole  it  was  not  injurious.  In  the  course  of  his 
immense  experience  he  had  only  known  of  one  child 
whose  death  was  due  to  erysipelas  caused  by  vaccination. 
He  had  no  proof  of  the  invaccination  of  syphilis. 

There  was  nothing  peculiar  about  Dr.  West's  evidence. 
It  was  according  to  professional  orthodoxy,  from  which 
it  would  have  required  more  than  ordinary  courage  to 
depart.  Medical  men  by  the  gross  could  have  been  put 
up  to  deliver  similar  evidence  ;  but  what  was  it  worth  ? 
The  medical  mind  is  fixed  in  two  directions ;  first,  that 
vaccination  prevents  smallpox,  or  mitigates  it ;  and 
second,  that  it  induces  a  harmless  disease ;  a  couple  of 
conclusions  that  it  seems  possible  to  maintain  in  presence 
of  a  vast  array  of  evidence  to  the  contrary. 

If  any  one  chooses  to  assert  that  vaccination  prevents 
smallpox  or  mitigates  it,  How  can  he  be  confuted  ?  'The 
prevented  smallpox  is  hid  in  the  unknown,  likewise  the 
severity  that  has  been  mitigated.  Again,  if  vaccination 
be  held  harmless,  any  instance  of  its  ill  effects  can  be 
resolved  into  coincidence  with  a  sneer  at  the  vulgar 
fallacy  of  converting  post  hoc  into  propter  hoc.  Possessed 
with  these  notions,  nothing  is  easier  than  to  assert  with 
Dr.  Stevens,  for  example,  "No  man  has  seen  more  of 
vaccination  than  I  have,  but  I  have  yet  to  see  any  bad 
effect  from  the  practice."  None  are  so  blind  as  those 
whose  business  it  is  not  to  see ;  or  as  Mr.  Aubrey  De 
Vere  has  it,  "Prejudice,  which  sees  what  it  pleases,  can- 
not see  what  is  plain."  It  is,  I  contend,  plainly  impossi- 
ble to  inflict  a  disease  like  Vaccinia,  in  any  of  its 
varieties,  without  injury  to  the  extent  of  the  disease ; 
without  intensifying  active  or  exciting  latent  disease ; 
or  without  the  risk  of  conveying  other  inoculable  disease 
from  the  vaccinif er. 


HOUSE  OF  COMMONS  COMMITTEE,  1871.  567 

"  The  great  question  before  the  Committee,"  said  Sir 
Dominic  Corrigan,  "  is  whether  vaccine  poison  can  con- 
tain within  itself  syphilitic  or  any  other  poison" — the 
great  terror  being  syphilitic  poison.  That  question 
the  next  witness,  Mr.  Jonathan  Hutchinson,  an  expert  in 
syphilis,  determined.  He  had  been  called  to  examine 
thirteen  persons,  mostly  young  adults,  engaged  in  a 
London  shop,  who  had  been  revaccinated  by  order  of 
their  employer  during  the  prevalent  smallpox  panic. 
The  vaccinifer  was  "  a  fine,  full-grown,  healthy  child," 
yet  it  conveyed  syphilis,  beyond  mistake,  to  11  of  the  13 
vaccinated.  Mr.  Hutchinson  allowed  that  the  vaccinator 
was  not  to  be  blamed  for  the  disaster,  saying — 

5032. — I  very  much  doubt  whether  it  could  have  been  avoided 
by  inspection.  The  child  looked  healthy,  and  it  had  passed  at  the 
Vaccine  Station  as  healthy. 

Having  similar  cases  within  his  experience,  and  con- 
vinced "  that  syphilis  can  be  communicated  in  the  act  of 
vaccination,"  Mr.  Hutchinson  was  asked  by  Mr.  Candlish 
whether  he  was  aware  that  the  medical  profession  in 
general  denied  the  possibility,  he  replied — 

5060. — I  am  not  aware  that  the  authorities  on  the  subject  deny 
it ;  I  believe  that  several  of  them  hold  it  very  clearly  ;  I  am  aware 
that  the  general  opinion  of  the  profession  is  perhaps  opposed  to 
it,  but  not  the  opinion  of  those  who  have  carefully  investigated  the 
question. 

To  reduce  the  effect  of  testimony  so  injurious  to  vac- 
cination, it  was  attempted  to  make  out  that  the  danger 
was  limited  to  virus  tainted  with  blood  ;  and  although 
Mr.  Hutchinson  conceded  that  blood  might  be  the  me- 
dium of  transmission,  it  was  undecided. 

5073. — It  is  not  a  subject  on  which  I  should  like  to  infer  any- 
thing ;  I  should  like  to  have  experiments  and  facts. 

Subsequent  experience  has  shown  that  with  blood  or 
without  blood,  syphilis  may  be  invaccinated.  Still,  Mr. 
Hutchinson,  as  an  advocate  of  vaccination,  and  of  its 
compulsory  infliction,  "  considering  it  of  the  utmost  ne- 
cessity and  importance,"  conceded  that  the  risk  was 


568  VACCINATION. 


infinitesimal ;  but  (as  was  remarked  at  the  time)  unless 
the  diffusion  of  syphilis  were  infinitesimal,  there  was  no 
ground  for  the  assumption  of  an  infinitesimal  risk.  As 
Mr.  Hutchinson  admitted — 

5089. — I  believe  there  are  cases  of  latent  Syphilis  which  cannot 
be  detected  by  any  medical  man,  unless  he  examines  into  the  his- 
tory of  the  child  as  well  as  its  appearance. 

Mr.  James  Neighbour,  vaccination  officer  of  St.  Luke's, 
Middlesex,  a  district  of  60,000  inhabitants,  chiefly  poor, 
described  the  operation  of  the  Vaccination  Acts.  He  met 
with  little  resistance  to  the  law ;  the  births  were  vacci- 
nated up  to  the  registration  point,  but  he  had  no  check 
on  those  who  might  neglect  or  evade  registration,  or 
leave  or  settle  in  St.  Luke's. 

Dr.  E.  C.  Seaton,  as  select  representative  of  the  official 
vaccine  ring,  was  reserved  for  the  consummation  of  the 
inquiry.  To  review  his  evidence,  delivered  with  much 
elaboration,  would  be  to  repeat  much  of  our  story. 
Vaccination  was  afresh  set  forth  as  "  a  perfectly  safe  and 
efficient  prophylactic  against  smallpox,  which  might  be 
as  reasonably  disputed  as  the  demonstrations  of  Euclid." 
Nevertheless,  the  perfectly  safe  and  efficient  variety  of 
vaccination  was  neither  defined  by  the  witness,  nor  de- 
manded by  the  Committee — whether  with  horsegrease 
cowpox,  cowpox,  horsepox,  or  smallpox  cowpox;  an 
omission  that  illustrates  the  slovenly  and  credulous  habit 
of  those  concerned — a  19th  century  miracle  and  mystery, 
being  under  discussion,  and  matter  and  mode  being  taken 
for  granted  under  cover  of  a  word  ! 

Throughout  Seaton's  evidence,  smallpox  was  treated 
as  an  isolated  disease,  which  might  be  dealt  with  speci- 
fically and  exterminated  without  reference  to  other 
fevers,  the  common  mortality  being  reduced  to  the  extent 
of  its  reduction:  no  relation  being  recognised  between 
fever  and  fever,  epidemic  and  epidemic — 

5344. — Epidemics  of  Smallpox,  like  epidemics  of  other  diseases, 
come  and  go  according  to  laws  which  we  have  not  made  out.  They 
vary  in  their  intensity,  and  vary  in  their  power  of  diffusion.  I 
have  no  explanation  to  offer  why  the  present  epidemic  (1871)  should 


HOUSE  OF  COMMONS  COMMITTEE,  1871.  569 

be  so  much  more  intense  than  the  epidemic  of  1863,  any  more 
than  I  can  tell  why  the  epidemic  of  1863  should  have  been  more 
severe  than  the  subsequent  epidemic  of  1866-67 ;  or  why  one  Cholera 
or  Scarlet  Fever  epidemic  should  be  so  much  more  fatal  than  an- 
other Cholera  or  Scarlet  Fever  epidemic — 

Yet  when  explanation  was  offered,  namely,  that  the 
febrile  disease  of  a  community  is  a  measure  of  its  sanitary 
aberrations ;  that  whilst  the  forms  of  fevers  may  vary,  the 
activity  of  one  form  is  balanced  by  the  quiescence  of 
others,  the  tale  of  death  being  equal — the  explanation 
was  waved  aside ;  and  why  ?  Because  it  did  not  make 
for  the  glory  of  vaccination  ! 

Curiously,  and  for  a  different  reason,  Malthus  argued, 
as  we  now  argue,  that  if  vaccination  could  exterminate 
smallpox,  not  a  life  would  be  saved — supposing,  let  us 
add,  no  change  effected  in  the  conditions  out  of  which 
smallpox  and  cognate  maladies  arise.  Thus  Malthus 
wrote — 

I  am  far  from  doubting  that  millions  of  human  beings  have  been 
destroyed  by  Smallpox;  but  were  its  devastations,  as  Dr.  Haygarth 
supposes,  many  times  greater  than  the  Plague,  I  should  still  doubt 
whether  the  average  population  of  the  earth  had  been  diminished 
by  them  by  a  single  unit.  Smallpox  is  certainly  one  of  the  chan- 
nels, and  a  very  broad  one,  which  Nature  has  opened  for  the  last 
thousand  years  to  keep  down  population ;  but  had  this  been  closed 
others  would  have  become  wider,  or  new  ones  would  have  been 
formed.  For  my  own  part  I  feel  not  the  slightest  doubt,  that,  if 
the  introduction  of  Cowpox  should  extirpate  Smallpox,  we  shall 
find  a  very  perceptible  difference  in  the  increased  mortality  of  some 
other  diseases.* 

Like  Simon  and  Marson,  Seaton  had  his  insult  for  the 
opponents  of  Smallpox.  Simon  charged  them  with  igno- 
rance and  dishonesty ;  and  Marson,  with  the  desire  to 
have  their  families  reduced  by  smallpox.  Seaton  held  that 
they  enjoyed  martyrdom  and  courted  imprisonment,  in 
order  to  get  silver  watches  from  their  admirers  on  their 
release !  Here  imputation  was  self-revelation.  Seaton 
had  won  place  and  pay  by  his  promotion  of  State  vacci- 
nation ;  and  absurdly  ascribed  to  his  antagonists  his  own 

*  Essay  on  the  Principle  of  Population.     2nd  Ed.     London,  1803. 


570  VACCINATION. 


venality.  Indeed,  his  evidence  throughout  was  pervaded 
by  the  temper  and  tactics  of  the  quack,  with  an  end  to 
promote  per  fas  et  nefas.  Asked  what  would  happen  if 
compulsion  were  withdrawn  from  vaccination,  he  an- 
swered— 

5510. — Simply  an  awful  increase  in  the  mortality  from  Smallpox, 
and  a  considerable  increase  therefore  in  the  amount  of  mortality  in 
the  kingdom. 

The  typical  answer  of  the  quack  when  his  dupe  hesi- 
tates over  his  prescription  is,  "  You'll  see  then  what  will 
happen  ! "  When  vaccination  was  not  compulsory  prior 
to  1853,  nothing  "awful"  happened;  it  had  been  com- 
pulsory for  fourteen  years  in  1871,  and  yet  in  1871  the 
kingdom  was  under  experience  of  the  severest  smallpox 
epidemic  of  the  century  !  Nevertheless,  the  anticipation 
of  Malthus  was  fulfilled :  there  was  no  proof  that  the 
average  mortality  was  increased  by  a  single  unit. 

The  evidence  concluded,  a  draft  report  was  drawn  up 
by  the  medical  officials,  submitted  to  the  Committee,  and, 
after  some  trivial  alterations,  agreed  to.  The  character 
of  the  report  may  be  estimated  from  this  its  second 
article — 

That  Cowpox  affords,  if  not  an  absolute,  yet  a  very  great  protec- 
tion against  an  attack  of  Smallpox ;  and  an  almost  absolute  pro- 
tection against  death  from  that  disease — 

And  this  in  face  of  the  fact  that  deaths  from  small- 
pox among  the  vaccinated  and  re  vaccinated  were  recorded 
by  thousands  ! 

Against  the  evidence  in  favour  of  vaccination,  the 
prevalence  of  the  present  (1871)  smallpox  epidemic, 
especially  in  London,  was  alleged,  and  the  awkward  cir- 
cumstance was  thus  tried  to  be  evaded — 

Your  Committee,  however,  believe  that,  on  the  one  hand,  if  Vac- 
cination had  not  been  general,  this  epidemic  might  have  become  a 
pestilence  as  destructive  as  Smallpox  has  often  been  where  the 
population  has  been  unprotected ;  and  that,  on  the  other  hand,  if 
this  preventive  had  been  universal,  the  epidemic  could  not  have 
approached  its  present  extent. 


HOUSE  OF  COMMONS  COMMITTEE,  1871.  571 

There  is  no  arguing  against  what  might  have  been. 
When  Sangrado's  patients  died,  he  averred  that  if  only 
they  had  been  bled  more  and  taken  more  water,  they 
would  indisputably  have  recovered  ;  and  Sangrado  had 
believers.  So  when  vaccination  does  not  save  from  small- 
pox, we  are  assured,  "Ah,  but  it  would,  if  only  there  had 
been  more  of  it."  Descending  from  fancy  to  experience, 
— from  what  might  have  been  to  what  has  been,  there  is 
no  record  of  a  worse  epidemic  in  England  than  that  of 
1871-72.  The  only  one  to  compare  with  it  was  the  epi- 
demic of  1838-40,  which  occurred  when  not  50  per  cent, 
of  the  English  were  vaccinated ;  but  they  fared  no  worse 
than  in  1871-72,  when  the  number  of  vaccinated  was 
doubled. 

The  proper  business  of  the  Committee  lay  in  legisla- 
tion, and  their  report  thereon  took  this  form — 

There  appear  to  have  been  several  cases  of  infliction  of  more  than 
one  fine  or  imprisonment  in  regard  to  the  same  child ;  and  your 
Committee,  though  by  no  means  admitting  the  right  of  the  parent 
to  expose  his  child  or  his  neighbour's  to  the  risk  of  Smallpox,  must 
express  great  doubt  whether  the  object  of  the  law  is  gained  by  thus 
continuing  a  long  contest  with  the  convictions  of  the  parent. 

The  public  opinion  of  the  neighbourhood  may  sympathise  with  a 
parent  thus  prosecuted,  and  may  in  consequence  be  excited  against 
the  law  ;  and  after  all,  though  the  parent  be  fined  or  imprisoned, 
the  child  may  remain  unvaccinated.  In  such  a  case  the  law  can 
only  triumph  by  the  forcible  Vaccination  of  the  child. 

In  enactments  of  this  nature,  when  the  State,  in  attempting  to 
fulfil  the  duty,  finds  it  necessary  to  disregard  the  wish  of  the  parent, 
it  is  most  important  to  secure  the  support  of  public  opinion  ;  and, 
as  your  Committee  cannot  recommend  that  a  policeman  should 
be  empowered  to  take  a  baby  from  its  mother  to  the  Vaccine  Sta- 
tion— a  measure  which  could  only  be  justified  by  an  extreme  neces- 
sity, they  would  recommend  that,  whenever  in  any  case  two 
penalties,  or  one  full  penalty  (20s.),  have  been  imposed  upon  a 
parent,  the  magistrate  should  not  impose  any  further  penalty  in 
respect  of  the  same  child. 

It  has  been  suggested  that  the  parent's  declaration  of  belief  that 
Vaccination  is  injurious  might  be  pleaded  against  any  penalty,  but 
your  Committee  believe  that  if  the  law  were  thus  changed  it  would 
become  a  dead  letter,  prosecutions  would  soon  cease,  and  the  chil- 
dren of  the  many  apathetic  and  neglectful  parents  would  be  left 
unvaccinated,  as  well  as  the  children  of  the  few  opponents  of  Vac- 
cination. 


572  VACCINATION. 


The  recommendations  of  the  Committee,  chiefly  admin- 
istrative, were  embodied  in  a  Bill,  passed  by  the  House 
of  Commons  on  15th  August.  The  tenth  clause,  limiting 
penalties,  was  the  subject  of  a  short  debate,  and  was  car- 
ried on  a  division  by  57  to  12.  When  the  Bill  was  brought 
before  the  House  of  Lords  on  18th  August,  Lord  Redes- 
dale  moved  to  omit  clause  10,  saying — 

The  clause  exempts  persons  who  have  been  fined  the  full  penalty, 
or  two  penalties  of  any  amount,  from  any  further  proceedings.  The 
clause  has  been  hailed  with  triumph  by  the  opponents  of  Vaccina- 
tion, who  justly  think  it  destroys  the  whole  effect  of  the  compul- 
sory law.  The  poor  will  naturally  argue  that,  if  the  rich  are  let  off 
with  a  fine  of  20s.,  the  penalty  ought  in  their  case  to  be  reduced ; 
and  such  a  resistance  to  the  measure  will  spring  up,  that  the  whole 
purpose  of  the  former  Acts  will  be  done  away. 

Viscount  Halifax  replied — 

I  hope  the  House  will  not  strike  out  the  clause,  as  it  might 
entail  the  loss  of  the  Bill.  I  admit  there  are  objections  to  its  prin- 
ciple ;  but  it  has  been  unanimously  recommended  by  a  Committee 
of  the  House  of  Commons.  Determined  opposition  has  been  offered 
to  Vaccination  by  a  limited  number  of  persons  on  grounds  which 
I  deem  unreasonable  ;  but,  nevertheless,  whilst  this  feeling  exists, 
it  is  the  opinion  of  Mr.  Simon,  the  medical  officer  to  the  Privy 
Council,  that  it  is  unwise  to  insist  upon  anything  which  is  not  in- 
dispensable ;  and,  further,  that  the  penalty  now  proposed  will 
answer  all  the  practical  purposes  of  the  Act.  It  is  desirable  that 
public  feeling  should  go  with  the  Act,  which  will  be  the  case,  since 
the  exceptions  will  be  very  few ;  whereas  an  adverse  feeling  may 
be  excited  to  the  prejudice  of  the  Act,  if  even  a  few  prosecutions 
are  persisted  in.  The  strongest  advocates  of  Vaccination  depre- 
cate repeated  fines  and  imprisonments,  which  leave  the  defendants' 
children  unvaccinated. 

Lord  Redesdale  rejoined — 

I  presume  the  noble  Viscount  thinks  it  useless  to  fine  a  man 
more  than  once  for  drunkenness  ?  The  clause  surrenders  the  whole 
principle  of  Compulsory  Vaccination. 

On  the  question  whether  the  clause  should  stand  part 
of  the  Bill,  their  Lordships  divided  : — Contents  7 ;  Non- 
contents,  8 ;  Majority,  1.  Resolved  in  the  negative. 

On  the  19th  August  the  House  of  Commons  considered 
the  Lords'  amendment,  when  Mr.  W.  E.  Forster  observed — 

The  House  of  Lords  has  struck  out  of  the  Bill  the  10th  Clause, 
the  important  clause  which  mitigates  penalties.  That  clause  was 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  FREEDOM.        573 

passed  in  this  House  by  a  majority  of  57  to  12,  and  expunged  in 
the  other  House  by  a  majority  of  8  to  7,  the  total  number  of  peers 
voting  being  just  equal  to  the  number  of  members  of  the  Select 
Committee  which,  after  long  and  careful  consideration,  came  to  a 
unanimous  conclusion  in  favour  of  the  clause.  I  should  have  no 
hesitation  in  asking  the  House  to  disagree  to  the  amendment,  if 
the  period  of  the  session  would  allow  of  such  disagreement  being 
made  without  loss  of  the  Bill ;  but  as  that  is  not  the  case,  and  as 
such  a  course  may  involve  the  loss  of  the  Bill,  which  effects  several 
great  improvements,  I  fear  the  House  has  no  choice,  and  must  ac- 
cept the  amendment.  Although  the  clause  is  doubtless  an  impor- 
tant one,  I  may  remark  it  is  not  necessary  to  other  parts  of  the 
Bill,  and,  with  Smallpox  raging  in  the  country  as  it  is,  I  think  it 
will  not  be  safe  to  postpone  the  measure.  I  regret  the  omission  of 
the  clause,  because  in  my  opinion  it  strikes  a  heavy  blow  at  the 
principle  of  Compulsory  Vaccination,  which  their  Lordships,  as 
well  as  I,  think  necessary  for  the  health  of  the  country.  I  move 
that  the  House  agree  to  the  Lords'  amendment. 

Mr.  M'Laren  said — 

Whilst  I  concur  in  the  course  proposed,  I  hope  the  Government 
may  lose  no  time  in  bringing  in  a  Bill  to  enact  the  clause  that  is 
dropped. 

The  motion  was  agreed  to,  and  repeated  penalties  con- 
tinue to  this  day. 


CHAPTER  XLIV. 

THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  FREEDOM. 

THE  temper  and  conduct  of  Parliament  satisfied  Mr. 
Gibbs  and  his  associates  that  they  must  turn  again  to 
the  people  and  achieve  success  through  their  instruction, 
enlightenment  and  fears.  At  this  juncture,  however, 
the  labours  of  Mr.  Gibbs  terminated.  He  had  married 
Miss  Griffiths  (for  many  years  secretary  of  the  Ladies' 
Sanitary  Association),  and  had  gone  with  her  on  a  tour 
through  the  United  Kingdom,  holding  meetings  and 
discussing  the  evidence  and  report  of  the  House  of 
Commons  Committee.  His  last  public  appearance  was 


574  VACCINATION. 


at  Cork ;  proceeding  thence  to  Dublin,  he  died  there 
after  a  short  illness  on  1st  December,  1871. 

The  removal  of  Mr.  Gibbs  was  a  severe  discourage- 
ment; but  a  good  cause  may  always  be  trusted  to  evolve 
its  own  prophets.  Mrs.  Gibbs,  as  became  a  wise  woman, 
felt  that  she  could  not  better  honour  her  husband  than 
by  consecrating  herself  to  his  work.  She  formed  the 
Mother's  Anti  -  Compulsory  Vaccination  League  ;  and 
until  her  own  death,  10th  November,  1878,  devoted  her 
training,  experience  and  intelligence  to  awakening  an 
interest  in  those  divine  laws  of  life  of  which  a  practice 
like  vaccination  is  a  deliberate  negation. 

In  1872  Mr.  John  Pickering,  of  Leeds,  in  conjunction 
with  Mr.  Henry  Pitman,  started  the  The  Anti-Vaccinator 
fortnightly,  and  continued  it  for  a  year.  To  maintain 
such  a  journal  is  far  from  easy.  As  Napoleon  III.  ob- 
served to  Cobden,  "  There  are  a  good  many  free-traders 
in  France,  but  you  must  remember  that  the  people  are 
not  organised,  whilst  the  trades  which  prey  upon  the 
people  are  organised  and  are  always  alert."  To  over- 
throw the  trade  in  vaccination,  established,  endowed 
and  enforced,  is  to  encounter  the  enmity  and  opposition 
of  the  organised  profession  at  whose  instigation  and  for 
whose  advantage  vaccination  was  established,  endowed 
and  enforced;  and  to  effect  the  overthrow,  it  is  necessary 
to  raise  up  a  countervailing  force  among  a  public  apa- 
thetic, ignorant,  and  credulous  as  to  medical  mysteries. 
The  overthrow  might  be  thought  hopeless  were  it  not 
for  the  leverage  afforded  by  the  compulsory  law.  Every 
parent  who  has  wisdom  and  love  enough  to  refuse  to 
have  his  child  vaccinated,  is  enabled  to  bear  his  testimony 
in  court,  to  have  it  certified  by  fine  or  imprisonment, 
and  to  have  his  triumph  published  for  encouragement 
and  repetition.  There  is  no  preaching  like  such  practice, 
for  which  the  evil  law  itself  provides  opportunity. 

Mr.  Pickering  was  fined  over  and  over  again,  and  in 
his  Anti-Vaccinator  he  proved  abundantly  that  he  had 
reason  and  science  without  end  for  his  steadfast  re- 
sistance to  the  legalised  superstition.  In  1876  he  was 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  FREEDOM.        575 

enabled  to  strike  a  blow  for  the  truth  not  likely  to  be 
forgotten,  especially  in  Yorkshire.  The  statistics  of  the 
Leeds  Smallpox  Hospital  had  been  published  after  the 
fashion  of  similar  concoctions — an  insignificant  mortality 
among  the  vaccinated  being  set  against  a  prodigious 
mortality  among  the  unvaccinated.  The  statistics  were 
denounced  as  fictitious,  and  proof  of  the  accusation  being 
demanded,  Mr,  Pickering  produced  the  proof.*  The  re- 
quisite inquiry  was  tedious  and  difficult ;  and  because 
tedious  and  difficult  it  was  presumed  it  would  never  be 
attempted,  and  that  impunity  was  assured.  The  exposure 
demonstrated  afresh  how  little  dependence  is  to  be  placed 
on  the  collocation  of  figures  by  those  whose  pride  and 
interest  are  committed  to  a  foregone  conclusion. 

The  severity  of  the  compulsory  law  is  subject  to 
frequent  abatement  in  its  administration  by  poor  law 
guardians.  They  appoint  and  pay  vaccination  officers, 
and  it  is  for  them  to  consider  and  to  sanction  repeated 
prosecutions.  Hence  a  majority,  or  an  energetic  minority 
of  guardians  adverse  to  vaccination  may  do  much  to 
frustrate  its  public  administration.  What  is  practicable 
in  this  way  was  shown  by  the  Keighley  guardians  in 
1876.  They  declined  to  prosecute;  they  disregarded  the 
admonitions  of  the  Local  Government  Board;  and  they  re- 
fused to  obey  a  mandamus  issued  from  the  Queen's  Bench. 
They  were  thereon  arrested  for  contempt  of  court,  and 
committed  to  York  Castle,  from  which  they  were  re- 
leased after  nominal  submission.  They  were  re-elected 
by  the  ratepayers,  and  did  as  before,  but  more  discreetly. 

There  is  a  proverb  about  taking  a  horse  to  the  water 
and  trying  to  make  him  drink,  which  applies  to  legisla- 
tion when  equally  disliked  by  those  expected  to  enforce 
it  and  by  those  on  whom  it  is  to  be  enforced.  Under 
such  conditions  the  compulsory  act  is  of  no  effect  in 
Keighley :  those  who  like  may  be  vaccinated,  and  those 
who  do  not,  need  not.  The  majority  are  unvaccinated 

*  The  Statistics  of  the  Medical  Officers  to  the  Leeds  Smallpox  Hospital 
Exposed  and  Refuted  in  a  Letter  to  the  Leeds  Board  of  Guardians.  By 
John  Pickering.  Leeds,  1876. 


576  VACCINATION. 


and  nowhere  is  smallpox  less  feared.  In  several  towns 
where  public  sentiment  is  similarly  enlightened,  some- 
thing of  the  same  freedom  is  enjoyed.  In  many  parishes 
it  is  the  rule  to  disallow  repeated  prosecutions :  the  vac- 
cination officer  fulfils  his  commission  in  prosecuting  once, 
and  then  his  hand  is  stayed.  In  some  parishes  those 
who  are  known  to  be  opposed  to  vaccination  are  passed 
over  on  the  tacit  understanding  that  they  keep  quiet  as 
to  their  indulgence;  a  course  of  procedure  extremely 
injurious  to  the  good  cause,  damping  enthusiasm  and 
suppressing  that  conflict  and  agitation  by  which  it 
prospers.  In  other  parishes  no  quarter  is  allowed :  the 
law  is  worked  with  rigour.  Prosecution  follows  prose- 
cution until  either  fury  exhausts  itself,  or  the  noncon- 
formist is  driven  elsewhere. 

Such  persistent  prosecution  often  becomes  a  public 
scandal.  To  a  parent  with  adequate  means,  the  fines 
and  costs  are  trivial,  and  are  amply  repaid  by  the  satis- 
faction of  setting  guardians  and  justices  at  defiance,  and 
publishing  far  and  wide  his  contempt  for  the  vaccine 
superstition.  On  the  other  hand,  a  parent  in  humble 
circumstances  is  often  put  to  cruel  straits  between  his 
love  and  duty  to  his  child  and  the  comfort  of  conformity. 

In  the  difficulty  thus  created  by  the  law,  the  Local 
Government  Board  is  frequently  appealed  to  for  advice ; 
and  in  1876  the  Board,  at  that  time  under  the  presidency 
of  Mr.  Sclater-Booth,  addressed  a  letter  of  counsel  to  the 
Evesham  guardians,  which,  translated  from  official  cir- 
cumlocution, came  to  this  —  Prosecute  until  you  are 
satisfied  your  antagonist  cannot  be  overcome  :  then  con- 
sider whether  you  had  not  better  desist;  for  he  may 
obtain  sympathy,  and  the  law  and  the  rite  alike  suffer 
discredit  in  public  estimation.  In  Cowper's  words,  "Safe 
policy,  but  hateful."  This  Evesham  letter  has  become  a 
standard  document,  and  is  regularly  posted  by  the  Board 
to  guardians  in  perplexity  as  to  the  extent  of  vengeance 
they  should  execute.  Such  is  the  variety  of  valour 
taught  from  Whitehall — "  Fight  until  you  discover  you 
are  not  likely  to  prevail;  and  take  care  to  leave  off  before 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  FREEDOM.  577 


you  make  yourselves  hateful  or  ridiculous."  Law  was 
never,  perhaps,  reduced  to  baser  terms. 

Several  attempts  have  been  made  to  modify  the  law 
as  recommended  by  the  Vaccination  Committee  of  1871 
and  approved  by  the  House  of  Commons.  Mr.  Pease 
(now  Sir  Joseph)  introduced  a  bill  with  that  purpose  in 
1872  and  1878,  limiting  the  penalty  in  any  case  to  20s., 
but  without  success.  In  1880  the  Gladstone  administra- 
tion, fresh  from  the  country,  and  flushed  with  good  inten- 
tions, brought  forward  a  similar  bill,  but  dropped  it  in 
abject  fright  in  consequence  of  the  clamour  of  the  medical 
trade  unions,  who  fancied  their  vested  interest  in  vac- 
cination endangered.  Nevertheless,  those  responsible  for 
the  law  at  the  Local  Government  Board  avow  their  dis- 
approbation of  repeated  prosecutions,  and  regret  that 
Parliament  does  not  appear  to  be  of  a  like  mind,  reckless 
of  the  fact  that  Parliament  is  rarely  unwilling  to  consent 
to  an  administrative  change  when  those  in  authority 
state  the  reasons  for  it,  and  insist  on  the  necessity  of 
giving  them  effect. 

Mr.  Forster,  when  moving  for  the  Committee  of  1871 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  spoke  as  if  no  member  was 
prepared  to  dispute  the  efficacy  of  vaccination  against 
smallpox ;  and,  though  the  assumption  was  excessive,  it 
was  not  far  from  correct.  Even  Mr.  Candlish  only  ob- 
jected to  the  injustice  of  compulsion.  Since  then  consi- 
derable progress  has  been  made.  Mr.  P.  A.  Taylor,  who 
shared  the  position  of  Mr.  Candlish,  subsequently  exam- 
ined the  history  and  evidences  of  vaccination  for  himself, 
with  the  inevitable  result:  he  discovered  that  he  had 
been  imposed  upon,  and  having  made  sure,  straightway 
began  to  make  known  his  discovery  to  others.  Mr.  C. 
H.  Hopwood,  equally  enlightened,  moved  Parliament  for 
various  statistical  returns  which  exhibited  the  influence 
of  enforced  vaccination,  in  authentic  form  and  on  a 
national  scale,  as  a  factor  of  death  and  a  communicator 
and  aggravator  of  other  maladies.  In  conjunction,  Mr. 
Taylor  and  Mr.  Hopwood  have  raised  the  standard  of 
resistance  to  vaccination  in  the  House  of  Commons ;  and 
38 


578  VACCINATION. 


what  Mr.  Forster  in  1871  set  forth  as  indisputable,  is 
now  openly  and  unanswerably  disputed  ;  for  those  who 
have  come  to  the  defence,  like  Sir  Lyon  Playfair  and  Sir 
Charles  Dilke,  have  been  convicted  of  unquestionable 
mis-statements  which  could  only  pass  muster  as  addressed 
to  uncritical  credulity. 

Parliament  is  the  creature  of  public  opinion,  and  to 
arouse  and  inform  that  opinion  and  to  bring  it  to  fruit 
in  legislation,  it  is  necessary  to  agitate  and  to  organise. 
Consequent  on  the  death  of  Mr.  R.  B.  Gibbs  in  1871,  the 
League,  of  which  he  was  leader,  underwent  a  course 
of  vicissitude  until,  in  1876,  it  was  revived  under  the 
presidency  of  Mr.  William  Hume-Rothery,  with  the 
National  Anti- Compulsory  Vaccination  Reporter  for 
its  organ,  edited  by  Mrs.  Hume-Rothery.  The  energy 
and  ability  which  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hume-Rothery  have 
brought  to  their  arduous  enterprise  have  been  unwearied 
and  conspicuous — their  self -consecration  has  been  unre- 
served. Sometimes  they  have  been  charged  with  vehe- 
mence and  intolerance,  but  when  we  consider  the  craft 
with  which  they  are  confronted  on  one  side,  and  the  cre- 
dulity on  the  other,  the  misery  and  mortality  resulting 
from  the  cruel  practice,  and  the  monstrous  oppression 
exercised  on  those  who  resist  the  despicable  superstition, 
it  is  not  easy  to  be  calm,  or  to  adjust  invective  to  a 
scruple.  "  Thou  shouldst  not  speak  so  strongly,  John," 
said  a  Friend  to  her  husband,  when  denouncing  some 
iniquity.  "  Ah  !  Jane,"  he  replied,  "  thou  knowest  not 
what  I  keep  back." 

It  is  frequently  said  that  anti-vaccinators  are  fanatical, 
which  may  be  more  or  less  true  ;  but  if  in  quest  of  fana- 
ticism, where  shall  we  find  it  so  ruthless,  so  untruthful, 
or  so  mercenary  as  among  vaccinators  ?  Take  for  ex- 
ample, Jenner,  or  Ring,  or  Seaton,  or  Marson,  or  Simon. 
The  fury  of  anti-vaccinators  stands  excused  by  the 
strongest  reason  that  can  justify  or  ennoble  fury.  If  a 
father  has  a  child  injured  or  killed  by  vaccination,  and 
is  threatened  (as  is  often  the  case)  with  a  second  attack 
on  his  family  life,  with  what  temper  may  he  be  expected 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  FREEDOM.         579 


to  regard  the  law  ?  When  Macduff's  children  were 
slaughtered,  it  was  only  in  Macbeth's  blood  that  he  could 
ease  his  soul,  and  with  Macduff  goes  the  sympathy  of 
every  human  heart.  So  it  is  with  those  bereaved  by 
vaccination ;  only  for  them  there  is  no  personal  Macbeth 
to  receive  his  deserts,  but  a  bodiless  law. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  philosophise  over  other  people's 
wrongs,  or  advise  forbearance  where  there  is  no  sense  of 
hurt;  but  fury  and  indignation  constitute  the  natural 
reaction  against  outrage  and  injustice,  and  where  feeble 
or  absent  denote  defective  moral  sensibility.  Neverthe- 
less, fury  and  indignation  are  poorly  spent  if  allowed  to 
exhaust  themselves  in  vituperation.  Their  proper  use 
is  to  give  vigour  to  action,  and,  invested  in  prudence,  to 
achieve  swift  and  sure  redemption.  Wise  is  the  advice — 

"  Prune  thouthy  words,  the  thoughts  control 

That  o'er  thee  swell  and  throng : 

They  will  condense  within  thy  soul, 

And  change  to  purpose  strong." 

The  National  League  holds  an  annual  conference  in 
some  convenient  centre,  to  which  representatives  from 
affiliated  societies  are  appointed.  Many  of  these  societies 
co-operate  for  the  defence  of  their  members  under  prose- 
cution ;  they  organise  public  meetings  and  discussions ; 
provide  lectures ;  distribute  tracts ;  bring  to  light  vacci- 
nation disasters;  frustrate  the  attempts  of  medical  men 
to  get  up  smallpox  panics ;  and,  in  short,  to  do  all  in  their 
power  to  turn  confidence  aside  from  a  magical,  mislead- 
ing and  mischievous  prescription  to  trust  in  the  common 
conditions  of  health,  as  verified  by  science  and  continual 
experience. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  these  societies  excite  much 
annoyance  and  evoke  much  bad  language  from  the  prac- 
titioners whose  craft  they  discredit  and  despoil.  Thus,  for 
example,  the  British  Medical  Association,  in  a  petition 
addressed  to  Government  in  1879,  protesting  against  any 
relaxation  of  the  compulsory  law,  and  signed  by  several 
thousand  members  of  the  profession,  gave  voice  to  the 
trade  grievance — 


580  VACCINATION. 


The  outcry  against  Compulsory  Vaccination  is  mainly  due  to 
certain  interested  persons  [interested  in  what  ?]  who,  by  the  dis- 
semination of  inflammatory  literature  and  distorted  statements, 
stir  up  opposition  to  Vaccination  on  the  part  of  ignorant  and  thought- 
less people. 

Here  what  is  wished  to  be  taken  for  true  is  set  forth 
as  fact.  Whatever  the  opponents  of  vaccination  may  be, 
they  are  neither  ignorant  or  thoughtless,  nor  do  they  in- 
fluence the  ignorant  and  thoughtless.  On  the  contrary, 
it  is  their  exact  acquaintance  with  the  history  and 
theories,  the  inutility  and  dangers  of  the  multiform  rite, 
designated  vaccination,  which  renders  them  such  danger- 
ous and  disagreeable  antagonists.  Further  be  it  said, 
compulsory  acquaintance  with  vaccination  has  been  for 
thousands  an  introduction  to  vigorous  intellectual  life. 
It  has  demonstrated  the  fallibility  of  authority,  and  how 
it  is  possible  for  what  is  accounted  established  beyond 
dispute  to  be  false  to  the  core.  Certain  it  is  that  ere 
long  vaccination  will  be  ranked  among  the  crassest  of 
human  follies,  and  what  force  that  exposure  will  lend  to 
scepticism  in  conflict  with  other  forms  of  conventional 
opinion,  may  be  left  to  the  consideration  of  the  judicious 
reader. 

The  London  Society  for  the  Abolition  of  Compulsory 
Vaccination  was  formed  in  1880  with  objects  thus  de- 
fined— 

1. — The  Abolition  of  Compulsory  Vaccination. 

2. — The  Diffusion  of  Knowledge  concerning  Vaccination. 

3. — The  Maintenance  of  an  Office  in  London  for  the  Publication 
of  Literature  relating  to  Vaccination,  and  as  a  Centre  of  Action  and 
Information. 

An  office  was  opened  in  Victoria  Street,  Westminster, 
with  Mr.  William  Young,  as  secretary,  and  The  Vaccina- 
tion Inquirer,  established  by  Mr.  William  Tebb  in  1879, 
was  adopted  as  the  organ  of  the  Society.  The  executive 
committee,  liberally  assisted  by  the  Countess  de  Noailles, 
Mr.  P.  A.  Taylor,  Mr.  Tebb,  and  others,  have  been 
enabled  to  make  many  and  visible  marks  on  public 
opinion,  which  by  all  means  possible  they  are  ever  intent 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  FREEDOM.        581 

to  repeat.  Mr.  J.  G.  Talbot,  M.P.  for  Oxford  University, 
took  early  opportunity  to  stigmatise  the  London  Society 
as  a  Murder  League,  and  Dr.  Barrow,  president  of  the 
British  Medical  Association  in  1881,  as  "  a  Disgrace  to 
Humanity" — these  and  similar  amenities  being  taken  as 
badges  of  honour  and  tokens  of  success.  The  London 
Society  has  also  actively  co-operated  in  successive  Inter- 
national An ti- Vaccination  Congresses — at  Paris  in  1880, 
at  Cologne  in  1881,  and  at  Berne  in  1883. 

Of  late  years  the  literature  of  anti- vaccination  has  been 
steadily  increasing  in  volume,  variety  and  power.  A 
notable  effort  to  bring  the  question  within  range  of  com- 
mon apprehension  was  the  publication  in  1876  of  Our 
Medicine  Men,  by  Mr.  H.  Strickland  Constable.  Apart 
from  vaccination,  Our  Medicine  Men  is  a  pleasant  book, 
full  of  anecdote,  good  humour,  shrewdness  and  excellent 
philosophy,  not  likely  to  be  forgotten  by  those  who  make 
its  acquaintance." 

A  series  of  Vaccination  Tracts,^  fourteen  in  number, 
was  commenced  by  Mr.  Wm.  Young  in  1877  and  com- 
pleted by  Dr.  Garth  Wilkinson  in  1879.  Fuseli,  reproach- 
ing his  contemporaries  for  their  indifference  to  Flaxman, 
said,  "  You  English, you  see  with  your  ears";  and  Fuseli's 
observation  recurs  as  we  think  of  the  limited  repute  of 
Dr.  Wilkinson;  not  that  any  more  than  Flaxman  he  is  un- 
known, but  because  he  is  so  inadequately  known,  pro- 
bably because  he  is  so  frequently  at  variance  with  the 
fashionable  science  of  the  day,  nor  has  paid  court  to  its 
fashionable  professors.  Nevertheless,  those  who  have 
sense  and  courage  to  recognise  what  is  admirable  with- 
out direction  find  in  these  Tracts  not  only  vaccination 
made  an  end  of,  but  thoughts  new  and  deep,  with 

*  Mr.  Constable's  publications  have  been  as  follows — 
Medical  Evidence  in  the  Case  of  Dale  v.  Constable.    York,  1872.    Pp.  30. 
Doctors,  Vaccination,  and  Utilitarianism.     York,  1873.     Pp.  239. 
Our  Medicine  Men:  a  Few  Hints.     Hull,  1876.     Pp.  689. 
Fashions  of  the  Day  in  Medicine  and  Science.     Hull,  1 879.     Pp.  300. 

t  Vaccination  Tracts  with  Preface,  and  Supplement.     London,  1879. 
Pp.  348. 


582  VACCINATION. 


felicities  of  diction  and  cadence  that  every  connoisseur  in 
words  must  appreciate  and  revert  to  with  delight.  How- 
ever wide  our  acquaintance  with  English  literature,  a 
variety  of  singular  affluence  and  originality  remains 
until  Dr.  Garth  Wilkinson  has  been  discovered. 

It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  all  medical  men  believe  in 
vaccination  in  one  or  any  of  its  varieties.  Those  who  use 
their  eyes  and  are  not  bewitched  by  prescription  or  self- 
interest,  recognise  the  failure  and  disasters  of  the  prac- 
tice, but  may  not  care  to  set  themselves  at  open  variance 
with  their  profession.  Many  privately  confess  their  van- 
ishing or  vanished  faith  in  the  rite,  adding,  perhaps,  that 
its  dangers  are  exaggerated,  and  that  it  does  little  harm 
with  due  precaution,  whilst  affording  a  comfortable  sense 
of  security  to  its  recipients.  Others  go  further,  and  wish 
the  discredit  of  compulsion  were  removed  from  the  prac- 
tice, when  they  would  leave  it  to  their  patients  to  decide 
for  themselves  to  vaccinate  or  not  to  vaccinate,  they  dis- 
owning responsibility.  A  nobler  few  decline  to  hold  any 
terms  of  compromise  with  the  imposture,  and  among  these 
Mr.  Enoch  Robinson  is  conspicuous.  He  has  lectured  and 
debated  against  vaccination,  and  by  his  temperate  and 
competent  advocacy  has  made  'converts  of  the  most  un- 
willing and  prejudiced.  Moved  by  a  popular  compilation 
in  defence  of  vaccination,  he  published  a  reply  to  it  in 
1880,  entitled,  Can  Disease  protect  Health  ?  * — a  polemic 
cogent  and  perspicuous,  and  ingenuous  as  its  opposite  was 
the  reverse.  As  illustrative  of  the  character  of  the  medical 
press,  it  may  be  mentioned  that  advertisements  of  Mr. 
Robinson's  pamphlet  were  declined  by  The  Lancet  and 
The  British  Medical  Journal,  it  being  their  rule  to  ex- 
clude announcements  injurious  to  the  interests  involved 
in  vaccination — surely  in  such  quarters  a  superfluous 
precaution.  Some  people  appear  to  fancy  that  intoler- 
ance is  a  peculium  of  theologians ;  but  they  would  find 
abundant  cause  for  a  different  opinion  if  familiar  with 
the  medical  world. 

*  Can  Disease  protect  Health  ?  being  a  Reply  to  Mr.  Ernest  Hart's 
pamphlet,  entitled  The  Truth  about  Vaccination.  By  Enoch  Robinson, 
M.R.C.S.  London,  1880.  Pp.  38. 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  FREEDOM.         583 

It  is  said  that  inasmuch  as  the  rising  generation  of 
medical  men  are  more  roundly  educated  than  their  pre- 
decessors, they  are  likely  to  deal  with  vaccination  in  a 
more  scientific  and  independent  spirit.  The  experience 
of  Dr.  W.  J.  Collins  at  St.  Bartholomew's  Hospital  lends 
reason  to  the  anticipation.  Study  and  observation  con- 
firmed Dr.  Collins  in  his  father's  practical  judgment, 
which  he  has  re-stated  firmly  and  temperately  on  proper 
occasions ;  supporting  it  with  the  wide  and  open  evidence 
at  his  command.  He  has  been  heard  with  patience  and 
favour,  nor  has  he  encountered  any  but  honourable 
opposition ;  proving  how  much  depends  on  the  manner 
in  which  a  man  fights  his  battle,  and  how  much  is  con- 
ceded to  courage  with  courtesy.  Dr.  Collins  has  argued, 
"  Ought  Vaccination  to  be  enforced  ? "  before  the  Aber- 
nethian  Society;  he  has  met  Dr.  W.  B.  Carpenter  in 
public  debate;  he  has  discussed  the  Vaccination  Disaster 
at  Norwich  in  1882 ;  he  has  answered  Sir  Lyon  Play- 
fair  ;  and  he  has  brought  the  doctrine  of  evolution  to 
bear  on  the  generation  of  disease.*  If  sometimes  we  refer 
to  the  medical  profession  with  severity,  the  recollection 
of  members  like  Dr.  Collins  operates  as  a  check.  Still 
we  must  be  just.  Professions,  like  kindred  trade  unions, 
are  controlled  by  their  interests,  and  there  never  was 
church,  or  community,  or  corporation  which  surrendered 
any  source  of  gain,  save  by  external  compulsion.  Public 
vaccination  in  England  represents  a  medical  endowment 
of  £100,000  annually,  which  the  profession,  true  to  the 
law  of  its  being,  cannot  renounce  voluntarily ;  and  there 
is  no  sense  in  shutting  our  eyes  to  that  certainty.  Of 
course,  it  would  be  absurd  to  charge  medical  men 
individually  with  defending  vaccination  because  of  the 
gain  attached  thereto:  nothing  of  theldnd  is  intended  : 
but  as  Hobbes  observed  of  mankind  in  the  gross,  "  Even 
the  axioms  of  geometry  would  be  disputed  if  their 
interests  were  peculiarly  affected  by  them." 

*  A  Review  of  the  Nonvich  Vaccination  Inquiry.  London,  1883.  Sir 
Lyon  Playf air's  Logic.  London,  1883.  Specificity  and  Evolution  in  Dis- 
ease. By  W.  J.  Collins,  M.D.,  B.S.,  B.Sc.  (Lond.)  London,  1884. 


584  VACCINATION. 


When,  therefore,  it  is  said  that  vaccination  is  a  medi- 
cal question  which  may  be  left  to  medical  men  to  settle, 
the  answer  is — "  Nay  :  vaccination  is  paid  for  out  of  the 
public  pocket,  and  whatever  the  evidence  adverse  to  its 
usefulness,  it  will  be  upheld  as  beneficial  by  those  who 
profit  by  it.  If  those  who  pay  do  not  object,  those  who 
are  paid  never  will.  In  face  of  common  experience,  we 
hold  it  cannot  be  otherwise." 

There  are  fashions  in  medicine  as  in  millinery :  they 
are  started  ;  they  flourish  ;  they  pass  away  ;  but  the  per- 
manence of  any  medical  fashion  might  be  secured  if 
fortified  by  endowment.  Venesection  was  once  in  vogue; 
now  it  is  scarcely  known ;  but  if  in  its  heyday  a  law  had 
been  passed  for  its  performance  at  the  public  expense,  a 
ring  of  official  venesectors  would  have  been  created  to 
justify  the  practice  against  all  gainsay ers;  to  deny  or 
explain  away  every  disaster  and  fatality ;  and  at  all 
hazards  preserve  its  credit  from  reproach;  whilst  it 
would  cost  something  like  a  constitutional  struggle  for 
the  nation  to  escape  from  the  imposition.  It  is  thus  with 
vaccination.  Left  to  itself,  it  would,  like  venesection, 
have  dropped  into  disuse ;  but  it  acquired  permanence 
from  the  initial  error — the  endowment  of  the  National 
Vaccine  Establishment  in  1808. 

The  enforcement  of  vaccination  supplies  a  yet  stronger 
reason  for  public  interference.  A  church  endowed  by 
the  State  might  be  endured  by  Dissenters,  but  if  sub- 
mission to  any  of  its  offices  were  made  compulsory,  en- 
durance would  give  place  to  active  resistance.  Such  is 
the  case  with  vaccination.  As  it  is  endowed  and  enforced, 
it  is  hopeless  to  try  to  reserve  it  from  general  discussion 
and  denunciation.  Since  citizens  are  liable  to  fine  and 
imprisonment  who  withhold  their  children  from  the 
lancet,  it  becomes  their  duty  to  satisfy  themselves  as  to 
the  character  of  the  operation  for  which  they  are  taxed, 
and  with  Avhich  their  families  are  menaced ;  and  should 
their  convictions  be  adverse  to  its  utility  and  safety,  they 
cannot  do  their  fellow-citizens  better  service  than  by 
bearing  the  testimony  of  open  resistance, 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  FREEDOM.        585 

Thus  vaccination  is  translated  to  politics  and  made 
every  man's  business ;  whilst  the  interest  created  by  its 
endowment  and  enforcement  deprives  its  medical  advo- 
cates of  judicial  authority  in  the  controversy.  It  would 
be  as  reasonable  to  expect  slaveholders  to  denounce 
slavery,  or  protected  manufacturers  to  advocate  free 
trade  as  for  those  whose  professional  prestige  and  advan- 
tage are  involved  in  the  practice  to  speak  the  truth  about 
vaccination.  Let  us  be  reasonable.  Do  men  gather 
grapes  of  thorns,  or  figs  of  thistles  ?  We  should  not 
require  of  average  human  nature  the  virtue  of  its  rarer 
forms.  Like  all  monopolies,  vaccination  endowed  and 
enforced,  is  defended  with  unanimity  from  within,  and 
must  be  attacked  and  overthrown  from  without — never- 
theless be  it  said  with  some  assistance  from  within,  and 
that  assistance  most  efficient. 

It  is  therefore  no  cause  for  surprise  that  a  large  share 
in  the  agitation  against  compulsory  vaccination  has  fallen 
to  laymen.  Mr.  George  S.  Gibbs  (cousin  of  John  Gibbs 
and  brother  of  R  B.  Gibbs)  has  for  thirty  years  main- 
tained a  criticism,  chiefly  statistical,  of  the  official 
defences  of  vaccination, 'characterised  throughout  by  an 
accuracy  which  has  never  been  impugned.* 

Mr.  H.  D.  Dudgeon  has  been  described  as  "  a  veritable 
and  venerable  apostle  of  health."  With  a  consummate 
knowledge  of  hygiene,  and  a  profound  faith  in  its  power 
to  overcome  zymotic  disease,  he  has  set  forth  its  prin- 
ciples with  such  lucidity  and  persistency  that  he  has 
gone  far  to  educate  Leicester  in  setting  at  naught  the 
vaccine  superstition.  To  the  standard  assertion  of  the 
vaccinators,  that  sanitation  is  good  against  all  febrile 
affections,  except  smallpox,  for  which  there  is  no  pre- 
ventive save  vaccination  (the  sovereign  variety  being 
conveniently  undefined)  he  has  been  an  opponent  merci- 
less as  truth.  Regret  is  frequently  expressed  that  the 
abundant  information  and  admirable  sense  which  pervade 

*  The  first  publication  of  Mr.  Gibbs,  The  Evils  of  Vaccination,  is 
dated  1856:  the  latest  is  a  reply  to  the  question,  "Is  Vaccination 
Scientific?"  in  The  Journal  of  Science,  March,  1884. 


586  VACCINATION. 


Mr.  Dudgeon's  writing  have  been  confined  to  newspapers 
and  occasional  pamphlets,  but  it  is  probable  his  teaching 
has  been  all  the  more  fruitful  because  adapted  to 
immediate  circumstances."  The  word  spoken  in  due 
season  how  good  it  is  ! 

The  name  of  Mr.  Alexander  Wheeler  of  Darlington  is 
familiar  wherever  vaccination  is  brought  under  discus- 
sion. Mr.  Wheeler's  interest  in  the  subject  was  first  ex- 
cited, he  writes,  by  Mr.  G.  S.  Gibbs,  "  whose  scepticism 
as  to  its  virtue  seemed  to  me  absurd  " — 

Mr.  Gibbs  inquired  whether  I  had  examined  the  question,  and 
when  I  confessed  that  I  had  not,  he  asked  if  I  would  read  Baron's 
Life  of  Dr.  Jenner.  Nothing  loath,  I  accepted  the  loan  of  the 
volumes.  Doubts  began  to  trouble  me  with  the  first  volume,  and 
the  second  quite  upset  my  confidence  in  Vaccination  as  a  positive 
preventive  of  Smallpox.  I  then  set  to  work  to  ascertain  with  what 
care  I  could,  whether  there  was  any  truth  in  the  assertion  that 
Vaccination  diminished  Smallpox  or  modified  its  virulence.  The 
process  of  determination  was  not  rapid,  but  long  before  I  had 
formed  a  definite  opinion,  I  was  satisfied  that  Compulsory  Vaccina- 
tion was  indefensible  ;  and  my  first  efforts  were  directed  to  the 
protection  of  my  own  children  from  the  infliction.  Unsatisfied  as 
to  what  Vaccination  was.  or  what  the  Vaccinator  effected,  I  clearly 
saw  that  the  State  had  no  right  to  enforce  a  practice  by  no  means 
harmless,  nor  preventive  of  Smallpox,  nor  easy  to  explain  the 
use  of. 

As  lecturer,  debater  and  newspaper  controversialist, 
Mr.  Wheeler  has  acquired  well-earned  distinction.  Know- 
ing far  more  of  vaccination,  its  history,  varieties, 
consequences,  and  statistics  than  his  adversaries,  they 
are  usually  overthrown  with  a  dexterity  realised  as 
horrible  and  astonishing.  Like  savages  with  bows  and 
arrows,  they  come  forth  in  the  innocence  of  faith  to 
encounter  arms  of  precision.  In  1878  Mr.  W'heeler  held 
a  debate  with  Dr.  George  Wyld,  an  enthusiastic  advocate 
of  the  cowpox  discarded  by  Jenner  as  impotent  against 
smallpox.  Sir  Thomas  Chambers  presided,  and  the 


*  An  article,  "  Compulsory  Vaccination, "  in  evidence  of  Mr.  Dud- 
geon's quality,  will  be  found  in  The  Westminster  Revieiv,  No.  CXXX., 
April,  18S4. 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  FREEDOM.  587 

question  discussed  being,  "  Is  Vaccination  worthy  of 
National  Support  ? "  How  rash  and  how  futile  was  Dr. 
Wyld's  championship  is  recorded  in  the  report  of  the 
debate.* 

Mr.  William  Tebb  is  another  well-known  name  in  con- 
nection with  the  movement  against  vaccination.  For  a 
time  dubious,  his  attention  was  quickened  and  his  course 
decided  by  the  summons  of  the  St.  Pancras  guardians  to 
have  his  daughter,  Beatrice,  vaccinated.  His  refusal  was 
followed  by  prosecution  after  prosecution  in  the  Maryle- 
bone  police-court,  until  at  last  the  guardians  gave  up  the 
contest  as  hopeless.^  It  was  a  bad  day  for  vaccination 
when  the  compulsory  law  was  applied  to  Mr.  Tebb.  As 
with  many  others,  persecution  made  of  him  an  inflexible 
and  active  antagonist.  His  tongue,  his  pen,  and  his 
purse,  coupled  with  untiring  industry  and  eminent  exe- 
cutive ability,  have  been  devoted  to  the  exposure  and 
overthrow  of  the  conjoint  superstition  and  tyranny.  Mr. 
Tebb  is  a  fine  exemplification  of  Sir  T.  Fowell  Buxton's 
opinion,  "  Vigour,  energy,  resolution,  firmness  of  purpose 
— these  carry  the  day.  Is  there  one  whom  difficulties 
dishearten,  who  bends  to  the  storm  ?  He  will  do  little. 
Is  there  one  who  will  conquer  ?  That  kind  of  man  never 
fails  : "  adding,  "  The  longer  I  live,  the  more  I  am  certain 
that  the  great  difference  between  men,  between  the  feeble 
and  the  powerful,  is  energy — invincible  determination,  a 
purpose  once  fixed,  and  then  death  or  victory.  That 


*  Vaccination:  Is  it  Worthy  of  National  Support?  A  Public  Discuss- 
ion in  South  Place  Chapel,  Finsbury,  on  2Sth  May,  1878,  under  the 
Presidency  of  Sir  Thomas  Chambers,  M.P.,  Recorder  of  the  City  of 
London.  London,  1878. 

Mr.  Wheeler  has  published  the  following  pamphlets — 
Vaccination  in  the  Light  of  history.     London,  1878. 
Vaccination — Opposed  to  Science  and  a  Disgrace  to  English  Law.     Lon- 
don, 1879. 
Vaccination — 1883.     London,  1884. 

t  Government  Prosecutions  for  Medical  Heresy  ;  a  Verbatim  Report  oj 
the  case  Regina  v.  Tebb.  Dedicated  to  the  Board  of  St.  Pancras  Guar- 
dians. With  an  Introduction  and  Appendix  of  Illustrative  Matter.  Lon- 
don, 1879. 


588  VACCINATION. 


quality  will  do  anything  that  can  be  done  in  this 
world."  * 

Mr.  P.  A.  Taylor's  speeches  in  the  House  of  Commons 
have  been  widely  read,  but  his  Letter  to  Dr.  W.  B.  Car- 
penter has  been,  perhaps,  the  most  effective  contribution 
to  the  good  cause.*!*  Dr.  Carpenter  had  volunteered  for 
the  defence  of  vaccination,  and  had  challenged  Mr.  Tay- 
lor; and  being  of  a  credulous  and  uncritical  habit  of 
mind,  he  collected  and  recited  the  various  legends  and 
factitious  statistics  that  form  the  body  of  vaccination, 
with  additions  from  his  private  resources ;  thus  consti- 
tuting himself  an  objective  of  attack,  and  providing  Mr. 
Taylor  with  an  excellent  opportunity.  Mr.  Taylor  ac- 
cepted the  challenge  :  he  captured  and  destroyed  Dr. 
Carpenter's  positions  seriatim,  leaving  him  routed  and 
helpless.  The  Letter  has  had  an  immense  circulation, 
and  its  influence  on  public  opinion  is  manifesting  itself 
in  a  thousand  ways.  Neither  Dr.  Carpenter  nor  any 
vaccinator  has  ventured  to  reply  to  Mr.  Taylor ;  the  fact 
being  that  no  reply  is  possible.  Any  one  who  atten- 
tively reads  Mr.  Taylor's  Letter  cannot  fail  to  perceive 
that  the  practice  represented  by  Dr.  Carpenter  is  rooted 
in  illusion  and  imposture.  Silence  under  the  circum- 
stances may  therefore  pass  for  discretion :  silence  on  Dr. 
Carpenter's  part  possesses  a  significance  it  would  be  diffi- 
cult to  misinterpret.  Indeed,  none  know  better  than 
those  responsible  for  vaccination  as  a  medical  interest, 
that  the  less  it  is  brought  under  discussion  the  more 
likely  it  is  to  endure.  Quieta  non  movere  is  their  motto ; 
and  officious  champions  like  Dr.  Carpenter  have  little 
thanks  for  their  restlessness. 

Correspondence  in  newspapers  is  a  well-recognised 
means  for  the  diffusion  of  new  ideas,  and  in  the  use  of 
this  means  the  opponents  of  vaccination  have  acquired 

*  Mr.  Tebb's  publications  have  been  many,  and  his  last  is  especially 
noteworthy — Compulsory  Vaccination  in  England:  with  Incidental 
References  to  Foreign  States.  London,  1884.  Pp.  64. 

t  Vaccination.  A  Letter  to  Dr.  W.  B.  Carpenter,  C.B.  By  P.  A. 
Taylor,  M.  P.  London,  1881. 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  FREEDOM.        589 

no  little  distinction.  There  is  an  increasing  number 
throughout  the  country  who  not  only  know  their  own 
case,  but  the  case  of  their  adversaries  better  than  do 
their  adversaries  themselves  ;  and  if  an  editor  has  grace 
enough  to  maintain  a  fair  field  and  show  no  favour,  the 
issue  is  invariably  satisfactory.  Two  able  correspondents, 
who  have  gone  hence,  are  especially  worthy  of  mention 
— Andrew  Leighton  and  William  Gibson  Ward.  Mr. 
Leighton  was  a  Liverpool  merchant,  who,  having  become 
interested  in  the  vaccination  question,  made  its  discussion 
the  occupation  of  his  leisure.  With  a  clear  and  logical 
mind,  patient,  sagacious,  and  tolerant,  prejudice  itself 
could  scarcely  withstand  his  sweet  reasonableness.  Al- 
most to  the  day  of  his  death,  14th  January,  1877,  he  was 
engaged  in  newspaper  controversy,  each  letter  bearing- 
witness  to  his  admirable  temper  and  persuasive  power.* 
Mr.  Ward  of  Ferris  ton  Towers  was  a  man  of  wide  read- 
ing and  perfervid  character,  who  wrote  and  talked  after 
the  manner  of  Cobbett,  whom  in  many  respects  he  re- 
sembled. Having  discovered  the  truth  as  concerned  vac- 
cination, he  applied  himself  vigorously  and  successfully 
to  its  diffusion.  He  sustained  his  prosecution  as  a  parent 
with  the  joy  of  one  who  delights  in  battle ;  and,  indeed, 
as  it  was  said,  a  periodical  prosecution  would  have  suited 
him  exactly,  providing  him  with  occasion  for  a  rousing 
speech  in  court  and  a  discussion  with  the  bench,  to  be 
duly  reported  in  the  Herefordshire  newsapers.  Mr.  Ward 
died  18th  October,  1882.  Latterly  he  had  access  to  The 
Times,  and  followed  up  a  series  of  letters  on  subjects  he 
had  made  his  own  with  one  on  which  he  argued,  that 
smallpox  was  neither  an  unmixed  evil,  nor  a  cause  of 
extra  mortality.! 

To  enter  into  a  closer  enumeration  of  those  engaged 
in  the  movement  against  vaccination  would  be  invidious 
and  bound  to  imperfection.  Still  it  would  be  grateful  to 

*  Mr.  Leighton  published  nothing  outside  the  newspapers  except  a 
letter  addressed  to  William  Chambers  of  Edinburgh,  entitled,  The 
People  of  Dewsbury  and  Vaccination.  London,  1876. 

t  "  A  New  View  of  Smallpox. "—The  Times,  25th  December,  1879. 


590  VACCINATION. 


refer  to  the  various  services  of  veterans  like  Sir  Jervoise 
Clarke  Jervoise,  Mr.  Thomas  Baker,  Dr.  Edward  Haugh- 
ton,  Mr.  T.  B.  Brett  of  St.  Leonards,  Mr.  Edmund  Proctor 
of  Newcastle,  Mr.  John  Lucas  of  Gateshead,  Mr.  R.  A. 
Milner  of  Keighley,  Mr.  W.  F.  Fox  of  Dewsbury,  Dr.  E.  J. 
Crow  of  Ripon,  Mr.  Francis  Davis,  jun., of  Enniscorthy,  Mr. 
Wm.  Thurlow  of  Sudbury,  Mr.  Wm.  Adair  of  Maryport, 
Mr.  Charles  Gillett  of  Banbury,  Dr.  T.  L.  Nichols,  Mr. 
James  Burns,  and  Mr.  Amos  Booth  of  Leicester.  These 
and  others  have  borne  the  odium  of  despised  truth,  and 
live  to  see  it  steadily  acquiring  favour  and  force,  whilst 
the  delusion  to  which  it  is  opposed  is  entering  the  region 
of  scepticism  preparatory  to  dispersion  and  contempt. 

All  means  are  good  against  evil,  but  deeds  are  more 
than  words ;  and  talk  against  vaccination  counts  far  less 
than  resistance  to  its  infliction.  The  more  who  are  with- 
held from  the  rite,  the  more  live  to  prove  its  inutility ; 
and  the  more  the  law  designed  to  enforce  is  set  at  defiance, 
the  surer  and  sooner  will  be  its  overthrow.  Nevertheless, 
let  us  not  forget  what  this  warfare  costs,  nor  how  we  are 
indebted  to  the  men  and  women,  brave,  tender,  and 
true,  by  whom  it  is  endured.  As  a  rule,  the  rich  are 
exempt :  the  contest  is  with  the  poor.  As  Mrs.  Jacob 
Bright  says — 

I  object  to  Compulsory  Vaccination  because  it  is  an  outrageous 
piece  of  class  legislation.  No  one  in  easy  circumstances,  no  one 
possessing  the  luxury  of  a  family  doctor,  need  have  his  child  vac- 
cinated. He  has  only  to  tell  his  family  doctor  that  he  objects  to 
Vaccination,  and  the  matter  is  at  an  end.  Did  ever  any  one  hear 
of  a  family  doctor  who  threatened  to  prosecute  the  head  of  a  family 
for  nonconformity  in  this  respect  ?  I  think  not.  But  the  family 
doctor  of  the  poor  is  the  parish  doctor.  He  is  quite  independent 
of  his  patient,  and  being  paid  by  other  people  to  vaccinate  them, 
he  not  only  vaccinates  them  in  many  cases  against  their  will,  but 
he  does  it  when  he  likes,  and  with  what  virus  he  likes,  irrespective 
of  the  feelings  or  opinions  they  may  entertain. 

I  was  riding  some  time  ago  in  Sherwood  Forest,  and  stopped  to 
ask  for  a  glass  of  water  at  a  cottage,  where  a  poor  woman  was 
standing  with  her  fat  little  baby  in  her  arms.  I  said,  "You've  got  a 
pretty  boy  there.  Has  he  been  vaccinated  ?  "  The  mother's  face, 
which  was  glowing  with  pride  at  praise  of  her  boy,  suddenly  fell, 
and  she  said,  "  No,  madam,  he  hasn't,  but  he'll  have  to  be.  We've 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  FREEDOM.         591 


lost  one  through  it,"  she  added,  with  tears  in  her  eyes.  She  is  one 
of  a  great  number  of  poor  people  who,  rightly  or  wrongly,  believe 
that  Vaccination  is  dangerous,  and  yet  are  not  able  to  resist  the 
pressure  put  upon  them  to  vaccinate ;  they  are  too  poor,  and  in 
most  cases  have  not  the  spirit  to  resist. 

I  say  that  it  is  disgraceful  to  fine  and  imprison  people  for  forming 
an  independent  opinion  on  a  medical  question ;  and  it  is  particu- 
larly disgraceful  that  my  poor  neighbour  should  be  thus  persecuted 
when  I  am  free,  absolutely  free,  to  please  myself  whether  my  chil- 
dren shall  be  vaccinated.  It  is  not  possible  that  this  thing  can 
continue.* 

The  contest,  be  it  repeated,  is  with  the  poor.  "  There 
is  no  getting  over  the  fact,"  says  Dr.  John  Scott  of  Man- 
chester, "  that  vaccination  is  hated  among  the  working 
class,  in  Lancashire,  at  least."  Vaccination  is  hated,  and 
rightly  hated,  and  the  law  is  set  to  overcome  that  hatred. 
Multitudes  submit  because  they  either  know  not  how,  or 
dread  to  do  otherwise ;  but  an  honourable  and  increasing 
number  prefer  the  better  part — holding  by  what  they 
recognise  for  right,  resolved  to  obey  God  rather  than 
man.  It  has  been  said,  "  The  days  of  martyrdom,  like 
those  of  miracles,  have  ceased";  but  have  they?  The 
record  of  humble  English  folk,  who,  during  the  past 
thirty  years,  have  withstood  the  infamous  Vaccination 
Acts,  bears  witness  to  the  contrary.  Martyrdom  and 
heroism  are  rarely  recognised  by  those  who  occasion  or 
dislike  their  manifestation:  it  is  sympathy  that  opens 
the  eyes  to  their  appearance.  Unknown  or  despised, 
these  medical  nonconformists  have  stood  true  to  their 
faith  in  the  order  of  nature  against  doctor-craft,  and 
have  counted  nothing  dear  to  them  if  so  be  they  could 
preserve  their  children  and  conscience  from  outrage. 
They  have  been  prosecuted  with  all  the  malice  and 
pertinacity  of  petty  authority — of  Justice  Shallow  and 
Bumble ;  have  been  insulted  from  the  judgment  seat ; 
have  been  fined  to  the  uttermost  farthing  and  loaded 
with  uttermost  costs,  and  this  repeatedly;  have  had  their 

*  Letter  from  Ursula  M.  Bright  to  Annual  Meeting  of  the  London 
Societj'-  for  the  Abolition  of  Compulsory  Vaccination,  held  in  Shoreditch 
Town  Hall,  13th  May,  1884. 


592  VACCINATION. 

goods  and  furniture  distrained,  and  their  homes  broken 
up;  have  been  sent  to  jail  with  hard  labour,  and  sub- 
jected to  every  indignity  and  cruelty  of  the  prison-house; 
have  been  hunted  from  parish  to  parish,  and  in  despair 
driven  to  exile.  And  these  have  been  Englishmen,  the 
law  English,  and  the  time  our  own !  The  Master  of  the 
Rolls  recently  observed;  "  What  is  contrary  to  the  feelings 
of  every  honest  man  cannot  be  the  law  of  England — or, 
if  it  be,  the  sooner  it  ceases  to  be  law  the  better."  It 
would  be  unfair  to  charge  the  injustice  of  the  Vaccina- 
tion Acts  to  the  English  people.  To  most  of  them  their 
character  and  operation  are  unknown.  The  chief 
sufferers  are  hidden  under  the  hatches  of  poverty,  and 
are  unable  to  make  the  land  resound  with  their  wrongs. 
Those,  too,  who  essay  to  speak  for  them  are  confronted 
with  that  obdurate  dulness  with  which  the  early  Free- 
Traders  had  to  contend  when  restriction  was  thought  to 
be  as  good  for  commerce  as  cowpox  is  thought  to  be 
good  for  health  in  stopping  smallpox.  Mr.  Bright,  in 
praising  the  speeches  of  Mr.  Villiers  at  Birmingham, 
29th  January,  1884,  remarked— 

I  mention  their  publication  to  revive  the  strange  and  painful 
fact  that  during  the  years  when  those  speeches — so  convincing, 
so  absolutely  unanswerable,  were  spoken  in~  the  House  of 
Commons,  they  were  addressed,  as  ifc  were,  to  men  morally  stone 
deaf.  The  arguments  were  not  answered,  the  facts  adduced  were 
not  disproved,  the  appalling  suffering  of  the  people  was  not  denied. 

A  similar  deafness  to  the  oppression  of  compulsory- 
vaccination  prevails,  though  there  are  signs  of  awakening. 
Still  it  is  not  for  those  who  suffer  to  wait  on  politicians. 
The  words  are  trite,  but  true  as  trite — 

"  Know  ye  not, 
Who  would  be  free,  themselves  must  strike  the  blow  ?  :' 

Many  are  discovering  that  in  union  is  strength.  Com- 
binations for  mutual  protection  and  insurance  against 
penalties  are  multiplying.  Resist  and  Organise  is  their 
watchword :  organise,  study  the  law,  find  out  its  weak 
places,  make  the  most  of  them,  harass  its  administrators, 
vote  only  for  guardians  who  are  opposed  to  compulsion ; 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  FREEDOM.         593 

and,  in  short,  do  whatever  is  possible  to  frustrate  the 
pernicious  legislation. 

Sometimes  it  is  asked,  "  Why  not  obey  the  law  and 
agitate  for  its  repeal  ? "  but  the  suggestion  is  designed 
for  stultification.  Suppose,  the  Society  of  Friends  had 
consented  to  take  oaths  until  the  law  was  adjusted  to 
their  consciences,  would  they  not  have  been  swearing  to 
this  day  ?  Suppose  some  dissenters  had  not  refused  to 
pay  church  rates,  when  would  church  rates  have  been 
abolished  ?  Suppose  the  Irish  had  submitted  to  English 
rule  until  convinced  by  reason  of  the  wickedness  and 
folly  of  their  domination,  how  long  would  they  have  had 
to  wait  for  the  redress  of  their  wrongs  ?  Such  questions 
might  be  run  over  pages,  but  to  what  purpose  ?  All 
know  (unless  submerged  in  cant)  that  those  who  would 
have  must  take ;  and  that  no  man's  rights  can  be  en- 
trusted to  another's  good-will,  be  the  trustee  ever  so  just. 
Vaccination  is  a  medical  monopoly  established,  endowed, 
and  enforced — a  tyranny  to  be  overthrown.  Those  who 
profit  by  it  will  never  consent  to  its  surrender,  whatever  the 
evidence  of  its  inutility  and  mischief:  it  would  be  against 
experience  to  expect  otherwise :  and  they  will  never 
be  so  valiant  in  defence  of  their  monopoly,  and  so  pro- 
fuse in  the  assertion  of  its  overwhelming  advantages,  as 
when  its  dissolution  is  imminent.  The  wise  understand 
these  things.  There  is,  therefore,  but  one  way  in  which 
to  get  rid  of  the  incubus,  and  that  way  is  outright  resist- 
ance. Already  such  resistance  has  proved  successful  in 
several  parts  of  the  country.  The  law  has  been  reduced 
to  abeyance,  and  similar  resistance  will  be  rewarded  with 
similar  results.  Moreover,  further  legislation  in  favour 
of  vaccination  has  been  checked.  Parliament  will  pass 
no  more  Vaccination  Acts.  The  plague  thus  far  is 
stayed  :  the  worst  possible  has  been  seen :  the  business 
is  to  clear  away  what  remains. 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  vaccination  is  unnatural,  and 
the  saying  is  disregarded  as  unscientific  or  absurd.     But 
is  it  unscientific  ?  and  is  it  absurd  ?      Men  deserve  an 
39 


594  VACCINATION. 


order  in  Nature,  and  when  they  perceive  that  any  pro- 
cedure is  at  variance  with  that  order,  they  instinctively 
condemn  it  as  unnatural,  though  possibly  they  may  be 
unable  to  give  a  philosophic  account  of  their  aversion. 

We  unite  in  the  assertion  that  vaccination  is  unnatural, 
and  when  we  are  asked,  Why  ?  we  answer,  Because  it  is 
an  operation  which  violates  the  order  maintained  in  the 
formation  of  the  blood.  If  we  follow  food  into  the 
stomach  and  attend  to  the  processes  of  digestion,  rejec- 
tion, and  assimilation — the  infinite  care,  in  short,  with 
which  blood  is  made,  we  shall  start  back  with  dislike, 
and  even  horror,  from  a  practice  which  sets  at  naught  all 
this  care ;  which  attacks  the  blood  directly,  and  attacks 
it  to  poison  it.  Hence  it  is  that  vaccination  is  stigmatised 
as  unnatural,  being  a  process  which  not  only  reverses  the 
course  of  Nature  in  blood-making,  but  doubly  unnatural, 
as  violating  that  course  and  poisoning  its  product. 

To  re-affirm  and  illustrate  our  meaning,  we  take  the 
following  piece  of  physiological  poetry,  poetic  yet  scien- 
tifically accurate,  from  Dr.  Garth  Wilkinson — 

In  the  human  body,  whatever  enters  the  blood,  be  it  even  the 
most  bland  food,  the  juice  of  the  grape  or  the  pomegranate,  or  the 
fine  flour  of  wheat,  be  it  oil,  wine,  or  fig,  is  broken  up  first,  and 
then  led  inwards  through  long  avenues  of  introduction.  The  most 
innocent  food  goes  in  most  easily  and  first.  The  police  and  sur- 
veillance for  the  rest  are  exceeding  great  and  many.  The  senses 
electively  appetise  the  fine  food;  it  has  to  pass  through  their 
peremptory  doors  of  liking  and  disliking;  instructed  doors  of 
memory,  association,  imagination,  reason,  wisdom,  religion,  in 
adults.  It  is  then  attacked  by  digestive  salivas,  tests,  examina- 
tions, and  severe  juices,  and  questioned  to  the  uttermost  in  that 
degree,  which  corresponds  to  the  former.  It  is  strained  through 
organ  after  organ ;  each  a  tribunal  of  more  than  social  exactitude. 
It  is  absorbed  by  the  finest  systems  of  choice  in  pore  and  vessel, 
organic  judgment  sitting  in  every  corner,  and  presiding  over  each 
inner  doorway.  It  is  submitted  to  glandular  and  lung  purifica- 
tions, and  their  furnaces  of  trials  and  eliminations.  At  last  it  is 
weighed  in  the  balances,  and  minted  by  supreme  nerve  wisdoms ; 
and  only  after  all  these  processes  is  it  admitted  into  the  golden 
blood.  This  of  the  best  food,  such  as  good  and  wise  men  eat.  The 
worst  food  is  made  the  best  of  by  a  constant  passage  through  bodily 
mercies  and  mitigations — a  no  less  sedulous  though  a  penal  process. 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  FREEDOM.  595 


This  is  physiology,  and  divine-human  decency,  and  like  a  man's 
life.  Vaccination  traverses  and  tramples  upon  all  these  safeguards 
and  wisdoms ;  it  goes  direct  to  the  blood,  or,  still  worse,  to  the 
lymph,  and  not  with  food ;  it  puts  poison,  introduced  by  puncture, 
and  that  has  no  test  applicable  to  it,  and  can  have  no  character 
given  to  it  but  that  it  is  fivefold  animal  and  human  poison,  at  a 
blow  into  the  very  centre,  thus  otherwise  guarded  by  nature  in  the 
providence  of  God.  This  is  blood  assassination,  and  like  a 
murderer's  life.* 

Finally,  vaccination  is  an  attempt  to  swindle  Nature. 
The  vaccinator  says,  "  Come,  my  little  dear,  come  and 
let  me  give  you  a  disease  wherewith  I  shall  so  hoax 
Nature  that  henceforth  you  may  live  in  what  stench 
you  please,  and  smallpox  shall  not  catch  you."  But 
can  Nature  be  swindled  ?  can  Nature  be  hoaxed  ?  Mr. 
Lowell,  in  praising  the  genius  of  Cervantes,  says,  "There 
is  a  moral  in  Don  Quixote,  and  a  very  profound  one 
it  is  —  that  whoever  quarrels  with  Nature,  whether 
wittingly  or  unwittingly,  is  certain  to  get  the  worst  of 
it."  There  is  sometimes  an  apparent  triumph  over 
Nature.  We  do  wrong,  and  fancy  we  may  evade  the 
penalty  by  some  cunning  contrivance,  but  ere  long  we  per- 
ceive with  dismay  that  the  consequences  were  only  con- 
cealed or  staved  off,  and  that  we  have  to  answer  to  the 
uttermost  farthing.  Vaccination  is  a  dodge  kindred  with 
incantations  and  similar  performances  whereby  it  is 
hoped  to  circumvent  the  order  of  the  Highest,  and  com- 
pel his  favour  apart  from  obedience  to  his  will.  By 
artifice  it  is  attempted  to  obviate  a  consequence  of  ill- 
living,  whilst  persisting  in  ill-living ;  but  if  it  were 
possible  to  escape  smallpox  by  such  means,  we  should 
have  equal  punishment  in  some  other  mode.  No:  small- 
pox with  its  alternatives  and  equivalents  can  only  be 
avoided  through  compliance  with  the  old-fashioned  pre- 
scription, "  Wash  you,  make  you  clean  ;  cease  to  do  evil, 
learn  to  do  well."  The  lesson  is  hard  to  learn,  and 
harder  to  practise ;  but  there  is  no  evading  it  if  we  would 


*  On  Human  Science,  Good  and  Evil,  and  Us  Works;  and  on  Divine 
Revelation  and  its  Works  and  Sciences.     London,  1876. 


596  VACCINATION. 


be  healthy  and  happy.  Wherefore  all  tricks  like  vac- 
cination are  bound  to  nullity  and  disaster.  As  Hosea 
Biglow  says — 

"  You  hev  gut  to  git  up  airly 
Ef  you  want  to  take  in  God." 


WILLIAM  A.  GUY,  F.R.C.P.,  F.R.S. 

Is  Vaccination  a  preventive  of  Smallpox  ?  To  this  question  there  is, 
there  can  be,  no  answer  except  such  as  is  couched  in  the  language  of 
figures. — Journal  of  the  Statistical  Society,  1882,  vol.  xlv.  p.  414. 

G.  F.  KOLB, 

Member  of  the  Royal  Statistical  Commission  of  Bavaria. 

From  childhood  I  had  been  trained  to  look  upon  Cowpox  as  an 
absolute  protective  from  Smallpox.  I  believed  in  Vaccination  more 
strongly  than  in  any  ecclesiastical  dogma.  Numerous  and  acknow- 
ledged failures  did  not  shake  my  faith.  I  attributed  them  either  to 
the  carelessness  of  the  operator  or  the  badness  of  the  lymph. 

In  course  of  time  the  question  of  Compulsory  Vaccination  came  before 
the  Reichstag,  when  a  medical  friend  supplied  me  with  a  mass  of  statis- 
tics in  favour  of  Vaccination,  in  his  opinion,  conclusive  and  unanswer- 
able. This  awoke  the  statistician  within  me.  On  inspection,  I  found 
the  figures  delusive ;  and  closer  examination  left  no  shadow  of  doubt  in 
my  mind  that  the  statistical  array  of  proof  represented  a  complete 
failure. 

My  investigations  were  continued,  and  my  judgment  was  confirmed. 
For  instance,  Cowpox  was  introduced  to  Bavaria  in  1807,  and  for  a  long 
time  none,  except  the  newly-born,  escaped  Vaccination  ;  nevertheless 
in  the  epidemic  of  1871,  of  30,472  cases  of  Smallpox,  no  less  than  29,429 
were  vaccinated,  as  is  shown  in  the  documents  of  the  State. — From 
Letter  to  MR.  WILLIAM  TEBB,  22nd  January,  1882. 


INDEX. 


Abbott,  Mr.,  speaker,  House  of 
Commons,  219. 

Abercrombie,  Sir  Ralph,  396. 

Aberdeen  degrees,  330. 

Aberdeenshire,  Maitland  at  home, 
34. 

Acksell,  Dr.,  408. 

Adair,  William,  590. 

Adams,  Dr.,  Waltham,  uses  small- 
pox cowpox,  76. 

Adams,  Dr.,  pearly  pox  for  vario- 
lation,  120  ;  on  cowpox  before 
Jenner,  138. 

Adams,  American  president,  379. 

Adderley,  Sir  Charles,  553. 

Addington,  Mr.,  186,  195. 

Addington,  John,  surgeon,  189,218. 

Addison,  W.  J.,  evidence  House 
of  Commons'  committee,  1871, 
556. 

Alexander,  Emperor  of  Russia, 
cautioned  by  Jenner  against 
Walker,  329;  disappoints  Jen- 
ner, 362;  enforces  vaccination, 
406. 

Allen  v.  Worthy,  551. 

Alsop,  Mr.,  surgeon,  Calne,  130. 

Amelia,  Princess,  variolated,  18,22. 

Anderson,  Mr.,  Madras, fraud,  387. 

Anderson,  Dr.,  Leith,  151. 

Angerstein,  Mr.,  230. 

Antimony,  tartarated,  substitute 
for  cowpox,  121,  348. 

Anti  -  Vaccination  Congresses  — 
Paris  1880,  Cologne  1881, 
Berne  1883,  581. 

Anti-  Vaccinator,  Henry  Pitman's, 
544  ;  John  Pickering's,  574. 

Anti- Vaccinators,  characterised  by 
Robert  Lowe,  528  ;  by  Simon, 
558-59  ;  by  Marsen.  563  ;  by 
Seaton,  569;  by  British  Medi- 
cal Association,  580  ;  by  J.  G. 
Talbot,  M.  P.,  and  by  Dr. 
Barrow,  581. 


Aspinwall,  Dr. ,  variolator,  Boston, 

376,  377. 
Atheism    imputed  to  variolators, 

42. 
Austria,  death-rates  compared  with 

those  of  England,  506. 
Avelin,  Professor,  vaccination  in 

Prussia,  405. 
Ayrton,  A.  S.,  vaccinators  should 

be  subject  to  penalties,  532. 

Badcock,  Mr.,  Brighton,  produces 
and  uses  smallpox  cowpox,  75, 
272,  472,  512,  514. 

Bagehot,  Walter,  8. 

Baillie,  Dr. ,  witness  for  Jenner,  190. 

Baker,  Sir  George,  practice  of  the 
Suttons,  47. 

Baker,  John,  one  of  Jenner's  vic- 
tims, 117,  154. 

Baker,  Thomas,  509,  590 ;  evidence 
House  of  Commons'  committee 
1871,  555. 

Bakewell,  Dr.  R.  H.,  evidence 
House  of  Commons'  committee 
1871,  559-560. 

Ballard,  Dr.,  prize  Essay  on  Vacci- 
nation, 547,  548. 

Balmis,  Dr.  F.  X.,  expedition  as 
trader  and  vaccinator,  401. 

Banks,  Mr.,  Jenner's  claims,  195, 
233. 

Banks,  Sir  Joseph,  146,  147,  226. 

Baptism  conjoined  with  vaccina- 
tion, 276. 

Barbados,  variolation,  38. 

Barge,  Mary  and  John,  104,  119. 

Baron's  Life  of  Jenner,  349-363, 586. 

Baron,  Dr.  John,  romance  as  to 
Jenner's  early  years,  94;  extra- 
ordinary narrative,  95  ;  gush 
over  George  IV.,  220  ;  Jenner 
v.  Walker,  226  ;  Jenner's  shy- 
ness, 230  ;  letter  from  Jenner 
on  Grosvenor  case,  319 ;  first 


598 


INDEX. 


meeting  with  Jenner  and  atti- 
tude toward  him,  349,  352; 
appalled  by  no  inconsistency, 
354,  nor  admitted  change  of 
mind  in  Jenner,  355-356  ;  rant 
over  Balmis  expedition,  402; 
Jenner's  inability  to  count, 
416  ;  Dr.  Watt's  mischievous- 
ness,  452. 

Uses  and  sends  Jenner  equine 
virus,  269 ;  apology  for  con- 
founding horsegrease  with 
horsepox,  270. 

Barrow,  Dr.,  "a  disgrace  to  hu- 
manity," 581. 

Barrow,  Mr.,  538. 

Barttelot,  Colonel,  537. 

Bath  Vaccine  Pock  Institution,  163. 

Bathurst,  Lord,  servant  variolated 
and  died,  34. 

Batts  of  Temple  variolated,  19. 

Bavaria,  results  of  vaccination,  596. 

Beale,  Dr.  Lionel,  much  vaccinated, 
302. 

Beaufort,  Duke  of,  176. 

Beddoes,  Dr.,  cowpox,  138;  small- 
pox after  cowpox,  165. 

Bedford,  Duke  of,  219,  220. 

Bengal  subscription  to  Jenner,  390. 

Berkeley,  Jenner's  birthplace  and 
home,  92  ;  inhabitants  vario- 
lated, 99. 

Berkeley,  Admiral,  186,  194. 

Berkeley,  Earl  of,  176,  191. 

Berlin  Koyal  Vaccine  Institution, 
and  Jeunerian  feast,  405. 

Berne  Anti-Vaccination  Congress, 
1883,  581. 

Birch,  John,  variolation  harmless, 
66 ;  treatment  of  smallpox  a 
chief  cause  of  fatalities,  85 ; 
summoned  on  Jenner's  case, 
187;  characterof  his  opposition 
to  vaccination,  274;  scorn  for 
means  used  to  extend  craze, 
276;  nature  of  evidence  sub- 
mitted to  House  of  Commons, 
276  ;  desire  to  know  what 
cowpox  was,  277;  absurdity 
of  spurious  cowpox,  277;  what 
had  Jenner  discovered  ?  278 ; 
assertion  that  cowpox  was 


harmless  and  would  never 
prove  fatal,  279 ;  futility  of 
variolous  test,  279  ;  smallpox 
following  vaccination,  280 ; 
Jenner  pestered  with  failures, 
280 ;  fine  promises  belied,  281 ; 
death  and  epitaph,  281,  282 ; 
Jenner's  treatment  of  Birch, 
283;  mention  in  Edinburgh 
fieview,  290. 

Birch,  Penelope,  reprints  brother's 
papers,  281  ;  and  erects  his 
monument,  282. 

Blandford  fire  and  smallpox,  85. 

Blane,  Sir  Gilbert,  83,  397;  witness 
for  Jenner,  187;  estimate  of 
smallpox  for  United  Kingdom, 
208,  209. 

Bleeding,  519,  584. 

Blistering,  519. 

Blood-making,  process  described, 
594-595. 

Bombay,  vaccination  introduced, 
385,  388  ;  subscription  to  Jen- 
ner, 390. 

Bompas,  flaming  fire-brand,  77. 

Booth,  Amos,  590. 

Boringdon,  Lord,  bill  to  suppress 
variolation,  73,  353. 

Boston,  variolation  first  practised, 
2-4,  7,  377  ;  completely  vario- 
lated, 57;  method  of  practice, 
58,  373 ;  smallpox  in  18th 
century,  371-373. 

Bouley,  Prof.,  experiments  with 
horsepox,  273. 

Bourne,  Sturges,  denounces  vario- 
lation, 72,  246. 

Boy,  cowpox  oxfaced,  297. 

Boylston,  Dr.  Zabdiel,  variolation 
in  New  England,  2, 5-7, 56,371. 

Bowman,  Mr.,  Newcastle,  550. 

Bradley,  Dr.,  Jenner's  conjectural 
income,  188. 

Brady,  Mr.,  liberal  pay  for  vacci- 
nation, 536. 

Bragge,  Mr.,  surgeon,  attempts 
use  of  cowpox,  138. 

Brahmins  hold  cowpox  impure,  387. 

Bread,  Beef  and  Beer,  88,  316. 

Bremer,  Dr.,  vaccinations  in  Berlin, 
406. 


INDEX. 


599 


Brett,  T.  B.,  St.  Leonards,  590. 

Briderwater,  Duke  of,  son  vario- 
lated and  killed,  34. 

Bright,  Jacob,  553  ;  cites  Gregory 
against  Marson  on  marks, 
561. 

Bright,  John,  deafness  of  House  of 
Commons,  592. 

Bright,  Ursula  M.,  forcible  vacci- 
nation of  poor,  590. 

British  Medical  Journal,  refusal  of 
advertisements,  582. 

British  Medical  Association  on 
anti-vaccinators,  579-580. 

Brodie,  Sir  Benjamin,  medical 
practice,  92. 

Brotherton,  Joseph,  501. 

Brown,  Thomas,  Musselburgh,  crit- 
icism of  vaccination,  285 ;  sees 
vaccinated  with  smallpox,  286; 
fallacy  of  variolous  test,  287  ; 
attempted  refutation  by  Edin- 
burgh vaccinators,  287  ;  re- 
affirmed position  in  1842,  288 ; 
Jenner's  malice  toward,  351  ; 
Moore's  insolence,  457 ;  con- 
fession that  Brown  was  in  the 
right,  458 ;  cited  by  Hamernik 
against  re- vaccination,  520. 

Browne,  Hawkins,  246. 

Bruce,  H.  A.,  spokesman  for  vac- 
cination ring,  530-531  ;  un- 
truthful statement,  537-538. 

Bryce's  Test,  353. 

Buchan,  Dr.  William,  Domestic 
Medicine,  53;  recommends  va- 
riolation,  54 ;  appeal  to  clergy, 
54;  mortality  from  smallpox 
and  variolation,  66  ;  maltreat- 
ment of  smallpox,  85  ;  preva- 
lence and  cause  of  scurvy,  87- 
88  ;  denounces  tea,  90. 

Bullpox,  144,  272,  374. 

Burdett,  Sir  Francis,  scepticism  as 
to  vaccination,  253. 

Burnet,  Mr.,  prosecuted  for  vario- 
lation, 463. 

Burns,  James,  590. 

Burrows,  Dr.,  London  bills  of  mor- 
tality, 1818,  77. 

Burrows,  Sir  J.  Cordy,  production 
of  smallpox  cowpox,  76. 


Butler,  Bishop,  national  insanities, 
91. 

Buxton,  Sir  T.  Fowell,  587. 

"Buying  the  smallpox,"  29. 

Byng,  Lady,  two  children  vario- 
lated, 21. 

Calcraft,  Miss,  Jenner  onGrosvenor 
case,  320. 

Calcutta  Gazette,  1804,  383. 

Cameron,  Dr.,  smallpox  cowpox, 
273. 

Candlish,  John,  565,  567,  577  ;  re- 
peated prosecutions,  550-552: 
witness  before  House  of 
Commons'  committee  1871, 
553. 

Canning,  George,  declaration  as  to 
compulsory  vaccination,  254, 
310,  476,  480,  485. 

Canterbury,  Archbishop  of,  would 
not  commit  Church,  275. 

Carioli,  syphilis  invaccinated,  523. 

Carlyle,  stupidity,  19 ;  teeth  out- 
wards, 215;  swarmery,  291, 
292  ;  injustice  by  law,  548. 

Caroline,  Princess  of  Wales,  has 
six  felons  variolated,  14 ;  six 
charity  children,  17  ;  her  own 
children,  18,  22  ;  promoter 
of  Mainland's  experiments, 
171. 

Carpenter,  Dr.  W.  B.,  answered 
by  Dr.  Collins,  583,  and  by  P. 
A.  Taylor,  588. 

Carter,  R.  Brudenell,  invaccina- 
tion  of  syphilis,  310. 

Catharine,  Empress  of  Russia,  va- 
riolated, 62,  362,  514;  pay- 
ment to  Dimsdale,  64. 

Catpox,  170. 

Caution  against  Vaccine  Swindlers, 
326. 

Ceely  of  Aylesbury  generates  small- 
pox cowpox,  75,  272,  472,  514, 
528. 

Cervantes,  595. 

Ceylon,  variolation  and  vaccina- 
tion, 345  ;  smallpox,  392-393  ; 
408. 

Chadwick,  Edwin,  "Keep  your  eye 
on  the  death-rate,"  450. 


600 


INDEX. 


Chambers,  Sir  Thomas,  denies  that 
smallpox  increases  mortality, 
439  ;  his  prophecy,  538  ; 
Wheeler  and  Wyld  debate, 
586. 

Chambers,  Wm.,  Andrew  Leigh- 
ton's  letter  to,  589. 

Chapman,  Mrs.,  variolator,  44. 

Charlotte,  Queen,  171,  219,  221, 
370,  380. 

Chastellux,  59. 

Chavasse,  Dr.,  ravages  of  smallpox, 
77. 

Chemists  and  apothecaries  friends 
of  smallpox,  325. 

Chester  smallpox  in  18th  century, 
69. 

Cheyne,  Dr.  George,  prevalence 
of  scurvy,  87-88. 

Chickenpox,  alias  smallpox,  366- 
367. 

China,  vaccination  introduced,  386, 
393. 

Chinese  method  of  variolation,  16, 
394. 

Chincough,  Watt's  treatise,  439. 

Christ's  Hospital,  smallpox  from, 
15  ;  mortality  of  smallpox 
among  inmates,  23,  32,  524. 

Christie,  Dr.  Thomas,  Ceylon,  392. 

Chiswell,  Sarah,  8,  10. 

Cholera,  1831-32,  448. 

Church  -  rates,  compulsory,  542, 
560,  593. 

Clarence,  Duke  of,  (William  IV.) 
171,  191,  219. 

Clarke,  Dr.,  advocates  compulsory 
vaccination,  305. 

Cline,  Henry,  letter  describing 
first  vaccination,  128  ;  advises 
Jenner  to  come  to  London, 
129  ;  witness  for  Jenner,  189  ; 
apology  for  Walker,  227  ;  Na- 
tional Vaccine  Establishment, 
459. 

Cobbett,  William,  shuffles  of  quack- 
ery, 20;  in  Gray's  Inn,  81  ; 
denounces  potatoes  and  tea, 
89-90,  316  ;  power  in  common 
sense,  304  ;  vaccination  fury, 
305  ;  addresses  Wilberforce  on 
compulsion,  305;  endowment 


of  vaccination,  307,  311  ;  its 
proved  failure,  308  ;  spurious 
cowpox  dodge,  309  ;  foresees 
invaccination  of  syphilis,  309, 
531 ;  Advice  to  Young  Men,  312; 
smallpox-made-milder  dodge, 
313  ;  had  Cobbett  followed 
Jenner,  314 ;  children  vario- 
lated, 315  ;  sanitary  science 
undiscovered,  316  ;  honour- 
able prejudices,  317. 

Cockburn,  Lord  Chief  Justice,  un- 
vaccinated  infants,  77 ;  re- 
peated prosecutions,  551. 

Cockermouth  and  Dr.  Walker,  220, 
325. 

Codd,  Philip,  son  vaccinated  by 
Jenner  takes  smallpox,  312. 

Cole,  James,  infected  with  horse- 
grease,  115. 

Collins,  William,  painter,  448. 

Collins,  Dr.  W.  J.,  opponent  of 
vaccination,  543,  547 ;  evi- 
dence House  of  Commons' com- 
mittee, 1871,  554. 

Collins,  Dr.  W.  J.,  583. 

Colchester,  itch  and  vaccination  in 
85th  Regiment,  126,  277. 

Coldbath  Fields  Smallpox  Hospital, 
40. 

Colliander,  Dr.,  Swedes  decline 
variolation,  408. 

Cologne  Anti  -  Vaccination  Con- 
gress, 1881,  581. 

Combe,  Andrew,  427. 

Combes,  The,  449. 

Common-sense  defined,  303. 

Condamine,  La,  59. 

Coningbam,  William,  529. 

Connah,  Mr.,  Seaford,  rarity  of 
smallpox,  83. 

Connell,  Ira,  545. 

Constable,  H.  Strickland,  writings, 
581. 

Constantinople,  practice  of  variola- 
tion, 1,  8,  11,  12,  18. 

Convulsions,  enormous  death-rate 
in  London,  80. 

Cook,  Turkey  merchant,  15. 

Cook,  Captain,  and  Jenner,  92. 

Cooke,  C.,  cowpox  did  not  prevent 
smallpox,  165. 


INDEX. 


601 


Copenhagen,  smallpox  and  vacci- 
nation, 420. 

Copland,  Dr.,  scepticism  as  to  vac- 
cination, 478. 

Corfield,  Dr.,  "  the  falsest  of  false- 
hoods," 86. 

Cornwallis,  Marquis,  398. 

Corrigan,  Sir  Dominic,  evidence 
House  of  Commons'  commit- 
tee, 1871,  560-561,  567. 

Corry,  Mr.,  withdraws  1866  vacci- 
nation bill,  532. 

Cortez,  Mexican  smallpox,  511. 

Corvisart  and  Jenner,  400. 

Cother,  Mr.,  variolates  Jenner 's 
child,  357:  resulting  scandal, 
358. 

Cough,  Whooping,  Newcastle,  429, 
430;  Glasgow,  439-443;  Eng- 
land and  Wales  1838-40,  505. 

Courtney,  Mr.,  amazing  estimate, 
194. 

Covent  Garden  grave-yard,  82. 

Covington,  F.,  evidence  House  of 
Commons'  committee,  1871, 
555. 

Cowper,  William,  80,  576. 

Cowper,  W.  F.,  496;  operates  in 
House  of  Commons  for  Epi- 
demiological  Society,  497;  ex- 
treme docility,  498;  answer  to 
Mr.  Duncombe,  499;  simple- 
minded  defence  of  compulsion, 
500. 

Cowpox,  Jenner's  cases  in  Inquiry, 
104-108;  assures  absolute  se- 
curity from  smallpox  unaffect- 
ed by  time,  105,  121,  141; 
incommunicable  to  those  who 
have  had  smallpox,  106;  taken 
repeatedly,  107,  108,  141; 
action  in  conjunction  with 
smallpox,  150;  cowpox  and 
smallpox  modifications  of  same 
disease,  166;  description  of  in 
cow  and  man,  109;  generation 
in  horsegrease  beyond  possibi- 
lity of  denial,  100,  110,  112; 
reasons  for  this  belief,  154; 
difficulty  of  proof,  100;  indis- 
tinguishable in  effects  from 
horsegrease,  156,  157;  an  un- 


common and  erratic  disease, 
75;  probable  extinction,  111; 
when  it  ought  to  be  taken,  111; 
its  inflammation  always  erysi- 
pelatous,  143;  sores  eat  into 
flesh,  and  action  checked  with 
escharotics,  1 57;  recommended 
as  an  expulsive  irritant,  123. 

Mr.  Knight  attests  common 
faith,  132;  notorious  belief  in 
its  prophylaxy,  94,  136-139, 
179;  Jesty  and  Nash's  claims, 
94-95,  204-206;  unnoticed  in 
Cheshire,  133;  well  known  in 
south  and  unknown  in  north 
of  England,  137;  known  in 
Gloucestershire  not  to  prevent 
smallpox,  95,  165;  inquiry  of 
Ingenhousz  in  Wilts,  130;  un- 
known in  New  England,  375 ; 
-  unknown  in  bulls,  144,  272. 

Discovered,  1799,  in  Lon- 
don, 145;  distributed  by  Pear- 
son, 146;  its  diverse  action. 
149;  Jenner's  views  discrimi- 
nated from  Pearson's  153,  178, 
198,  203,  347. 

Spurious  Cowpox,  99,  113; 
various  definitions  by  Jenner, 
240;  in  Spain,  401;  disowned 
by  Jenner,  239,  336,  454;  a 
dodge,  278,  356;  Birch's  in- 
quiry, 277-278;  Cobbett,  309; 
Hamernik's  opinion,  519-522. 

Crewe,  Lady,  and  Jenner,  231. 

Crichton,  Dr.,  vaccination  and 
enforcement  in  Russia,  406- 
407. 

Croft,  Dr. ,  faith  in  cowpox  in  Staf- 
fordshire, 137. 

Cross,  John,  the  Norwich  epidemic, 
1819,  432-439. 

Crow,  Dr.  E.  J.,  590. 

Cumberland,  Duke  of,  219. 

Dairymaids'  faith  in  cowpox,  95, 

114,  334. 
Dalkeith,  vaccination  introduced, 

151. 
Darwin,  Erasmus,  letter  to  Jenner, 

275,  371. 
Davis,  Francis,  Enniscorthy,  590. 


602 


INDEX. 


Davy,  Sir  Humphry,  hydrophobia, 
359,  371. 

De  Carro,  Vienna,  writes  to  Jen- 
ner,  264,  266-267,  405;  uses 
horsegrease,  265,  404  -  405, 
512;  conveys  virus  to  India, 
384 ;  Jenner's  congratulation, 
385. 

Decimation  by  smallpox,  76. 

Delafaye,  Dr.,  preaches  and  writes 
against  variolation,  42. 

Denmark,  variolation,  62;  vaccina- 
tion, 419-420. 

Des  G-outtes,  smallpox  and  variola- 
tion in  Geneva,  61. 

Devonshire,  Duchess  of,  works  for 
Jenner,  230. 

Diarrhoea  and  vaccination,  New- 
castle, 429-430. 

Diderot,  promotes  variolation,  59. 

Diet,  influence  on  smallpox,  87. 

Dilke,  Sir  Charles,  578. 

Dillwyn,  William,  letter  from  Jen- 
ner, 341-344. 

Dimsdale,  Dr.  Thomas,  variolator, 
47-48 ;  controversy  with  Lett- 
som,  49;  summoned  to  Russia 
to  variolate  Catharine,  63; 
price  paid  for  job,  64,  362; 
variolation  from  arm-to-arm, 
76;  parish  variolations,  379; 
might  have  anticipated  Jenner, 
514. 

Doddridge.  Dr.,  favours  variola- 
tion, 41. 

Dog  distemper,  360;  Jenner  vacci- 
nates King's  staghounds,  360. 

Dolling,  Mr.,  Blandford,  vaccina- 
tion before  Jenner,  138. 

Domeier,  Dr.,  221. 

Don  Quixote,  595. 

Downe,  Mr.,  Bridport,  vaccination 
before  Jenner,  139,  204. 

Drew,  Rev.  Herman,  anticipates 
vaccination,  138. 

Drysdale,  Dr.,  84. 

Druitt,  Dr.,  547. 

Dublin,  variolation,  34. 

Dublin  Colleges  of  Physicians  and 
Surgeons  report  on  vaccina- 
tion, 242-243. 

Dudgeon,  H.  D.,  585-586. 


Dumfries,  variolation  introduced, 
34. 

Duncan,  Dr.,  introduces  vaccina- 
tion to  Edinburgh,  151. 

Duncombe,  Thomas,  discomfits 
sharp  practice  in  House  of 
Commons,  498-499;  disap- 
proves of  compulsion,  499, 529. 

Dundee,  vaccination  introduced, 
151. 

Dunning,  Mr.,  surgeon,  89,  340, 
361,  385,  389,  390,  394  ;  enthu- 
siasm for  Jenner,  196;  first 
uses  words  vaccinate  and  vac- 
cination, 229. 

Dusthall,  Anna,  first  vaccinated  in 
India,  385. 

Dutch  in  Ceylon,  392. 

East  India  Company,  220, 

Edinburgh,  smallpox  in  18th  cen- 
tury, 50;  triumph  of  vaccina- 
tion, 1806,  71;  vaccination 
introduced,  1799,  151  ;  small- 
pox epidemic  among  the  vac- 
cinated, 1818-19,  366;  variola- 
tion disused,  1815,  and  no 
smallpox,  463. 

Edinburgh  Colleges  of  Physicians 
and  Surgeons  report  on  vacci- 
nation, 241. 

Edinburgh  Dispensary  and  small- 
pox, 1805,  242;  official  answer 
to  Dr.  Brown,  287. 

Edinburgh  MedicalJournal,  Brown 
of  Musselburgh,  351. 

Edinburgh  Review,  300,  302,  303, 
350;  comparative  fatality  of 
smallpox  and  variolation,  66; 
smallpox  diffused  by  variola- 
tion, 69;  rapid  acceptance  of 
vaccination,  70;  attacked  by 
John  Ring,  173;  anti-vaccina- 
tors described,  289;  a  homicidal 
article,  364. 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  killed  by  vari- 
olation, 56. 

Egremont,  Earl  of,  167,  168,  220, 
231. 

Eldon,  Lord,  73. 

Elephants'  milk,  327. 

Elgin,  Lord,  3S4. 


INDEX. 


603 


Ellenborough,  asserts  influence  of 
vaccination  to  be  transient, 
353;  Jenner's  indignation,  354; 
encounter  with  Jenner,  357; 
Epidemiological  Society,  482. 

Ellis,  Mr.,  fraud,  387. 

Emerson,  R.  W.,  Dr.  Garth  Wilk- 
inson, 549. 

Emery,  Aaron,  evidence  House 
of  Commons'  committee,  1871, 
555. 

Encyclopaedia  JBritannica,  horse- 
grease  and  cowpox,  271. 

Endowment  of  research  illustrated 
by  National  Vaccine  Establish- 
ment, 461. 

English  Cyclopaedia,  Cotton  Mather 
and  Lady  M.  W.  Montagu,  7. 

English  death-rates  compared  with 
Austrian,  506. 

Engrafting  the  smallpox,  1. 

Enniscorthy,  508-509,  590. 

Epidemics,  Dr.  Waterhouse  be- 
wildered, 382. 

Epidemics  of  smallpox,  Dr.  Seaton 
on  their  irregular  character,  568. 

Epidemiological  Society,  organised 
to  promote  trade  in  vaccina- 
tion, 480-491  ;  primes  Lord 
Lyttelton,  480,  and  W.  F. 
Cowper,  497;  untruthful  re- 
port, 485 ;  presses  for  more 
vaccination,  492 ;  bolder  de- 
mands and  more  untruthful, 
493-495;  medical  place  hunters, 
497,  500. 

Epps, Dr., validation, 74;  Tweedle- 
dum and  Tweedledee,  226; 
character  of  Dr.  Walker,  331. 

Equination,  229,  264,  265,  368; 
practised  by  Jenner,  268-269. 

Erskine,  Sir  J.  Sinclair,  Jenner's 
sacrifices,  194. 

Erysipelas,  a  note  of  effective  vac- 
cination, 113,  119,  143,  157, 
240,  279,  429,  503,  555. 

Escharotics  to  allay  vaccination, 
109,  118,  157,  161,  198. 

Evans,  T.  W.,  vaccination  in  Ice- 
land, 420. 

Evesham  Guardians,  advice  from 
Local  Government  Board,  576. 


Excell,  Hannah,  vaccinated,  118, 
and  vaccinifer,  128. 

Faces,  pock-marked,  468  ;  dis- 
appearance avouched  by  Na- 
tional Vaccine  Establishment, 
469-470. 

Faith  magic,  213. 

Famine  and  smallpox  in  northern 
Europe,  409. 

Farquhar,  Sir  Walter,  129,  188,319. 

Farr,  Dr.  W.,  decline  of  smallpox 
prior  to  vaccination,  86,  211, 
466-467;  confirms  Watt's  dis- 
covery in .  Glasgow,  447-448, 
450-451  ;  evidence  reinforced 
from  West  Indies,  560. 

Farriers'  faith  in  horsegrease,  100, 
114,  179,  334-335. 

Ferdinand  IV.  and  Naples,  396. 

Fewster,  Mr. ,  cowpox  more  severe 
than  smallpox,  139. 

Finland,  vaccinators  to  be  punished 
if  smallpox  ensue,  419. 

Flaxman,  581. 

Fleuart,  Dr.,  Boston,  results  of 
variolation,  5. 

Fleming,  Dr.,  Calcutta,  letter  from 
Jenner  on  variolation  and 
vaccination  in  England,  390. 

Fleming,  George,  cowpox  and 
horsepox,  272. 

Florence,  variolation  introduced,  62 

Forster,  W.  E.,  moves  for  com- 
mittee on  1867  Vaccination 
Act,  552,  553  ;  surrenders  to 
House  of  Lords,  572 ;  private 
faith  in  vaccination,  577,  578. 

Foundling  Hospital,  40. 

Fox,  Joseph,  friend  of  Dr.  Walker, 
218,  220. 

Fox,  C.  J.,  215. 

Fox,  W.  F.,  Dewsbury,  590. 

France,  variolation  introduced,  35, 
59  ;  prohibited,  60  ;  applica- 
tion to  Cowpock  Institution, 
168 ;  Woodville  introduces 
vaccination,  169,  398;  Na- 
poleon's despotism,  399-400. 

Frank,  Joseph,  scarlet  fever,  448. 

Freeman,  Mr.,  variolates  after  Jen- 
ner's vaccination,  280. 


604 


INDEX. 


Freind,  Dr.,  letter  from  Dr.  Wag- 
staffe,  17. 

Friends,  Society  of,  church-rates, 
542,  560 ;  oaths,  593. 

Fry,  Danby  Palmer,  evidence 
House  of  Commons'  commit- 
tee, 1871,  560. 

Fugitive  Slave  Law,  540. 

Fuller,  John,  denunciation  of  Lon- 
don Vaccine  Institution,  250- 
252. 

Fuseli,  581. 

Gale,  Samuel,  a  London  graveyard, 
82. 

Gardner,  Edward,  Jenner's  witness, 
95-96,  97,  99,  101,  131,  152, 
192,  362,  363;  Jenner's  pro- 
phetic vision,  122 ;  a  hint  for 
the  newspapers,  147. 

Gartshore,  Dr.,  discovery  of  cow- 
pox  in  London,  146. 

Gassner  in  1801  produces  small- 
pox cowpox,  512. 

Geneva,  practice  of  variolation,  61. 

George  I.,  favours  variolation,  5; 
assigns  felons  for  experiment, 
15. 

George  II.,  extolled  for  gracious 
patronage  of  practice,  43. 

George  III.,  receives  Jenner,  171, 
and  promotes  vaccination,  219, 
243,  370,  380. 

George  IV.,  does  as  his  father, 
323,  370. 

Germany,  variolation,  62  ;  and  vac- 
cination introduced.  151. 

Gibbs  family,  547. 

Gibbs,  George  S.,  550,  585,  586; 
evidence  House  of  Commons' 
committee,  1871,  55 1. 

Gibbs,  John,  birth  and  career,  508- 
509 ;  Letter  on  Vaccination, 
500-509  ;  541  ;  585. 

Gibbs,  Richard  Butler,  leader  of 
anti-vaccinators,  543-544,  550, 
578,  585  ;  evidence  House  of 
Commons'  committee,  1871, 
556 ;  death,  573-574. 

Gibbs,  Mrs.  R.  B.  (Miss  Griffiths), 
547,  573,  574. 

Gibson,  Wm.,  New  Lanark,  366. 


Giddy,  Davies,  prefers  variolation 
to  vaccination,  252. 

Giffard,  Mr. ,  cowpox  in  Dorset,  137. 

Gillett,  Charles,  Banbury,  590. 

Gillman,  Mr.,  fraud  in  India,  387. 

Girl,  cowpoxed  mangey,  297. 

Gilpin,  Charles,  character  of  anti- 
vaccinators,  542. 

Gilpin,  John,  illustration  of  Lon- 
don life,  80. 

Gladstone  administration,  pitiful 
performance,  577. 

Glasgow,  boarding-school  girl,  51; 
Dr.  Walker,  331 ;  rare  place  for 
smallpox,  439;  statistics,  1783- 
1812,  440,  442-443;  variolation 
practised,  441;  insanitary  con- 
ditions, 441 ;  vaccination  intro- 
duced, 441;  extent  of  practice, 
442,  446;  mortality  unaffected, 
442;  other  diseases  replace 
smallpox,  442-443,  446-447; 
activity  of  measles,  444;  Dr. 
Farr  on  the  evidence,  447-448; 
character  of  smallpox  victims, 
450;  variolation  disused,  1815, 
and  no  smallpox,  463. 

Gloucester  cathedral,  Jenner's 
monument,  363. 

Goatpox  used  in  Madrid,  401. 

Goethe,  stupidity,  279. 

Goldson,  Win.,  reports  smallpox 
after  vaccination,  283,  which 
Jenner  would  not  look  at,  284; 
publishes  pamphlet,  284;  sug- 
gestions, 285;  infamous  treat- 
ment by  Jenner  and  Ring,  285, 
350-351,  361;  Edinburgh  Re- 
view, 290. 

Good,  Dr.  Mason,  horsegrease,  100, 
260,  262,  267. 

Goulburn,  Mr.,  prohibition  of  vari- 
olation, 1840,  74. 

Grainger,  Mr.,  extent  of  vaccina- 
tion in  1850,  475. 

Granville,  Dr.,  decimation  by 
smallpox,  77. 

Grattan,  patriot,  184,  185. 

Graveyards  in  London,  82. 

Gregory,  Dr.  George,  mortality 
from  variolation,  66;  regrets 
prohibition,  74  ;  smallpox 


INDEX.    . 


605 


declining  before  vaccination, 
86;  letters  from  Brown  of 
Musselburgh,  288 ;  smallpox 
and  vaccination  in  Ceylon, 
393 ;  estimate  for  National 
Vaccine  Establishment,  461  ; 
scepticism  as  to  vaccination, 
477 ;  cited  by  Jacob  Bright 
against  Marson  on  marks,  561. 

Grey,  Mr.,  Jenner's  reward,  195. 

Griffiths,  John,  189. 

Grosvenor,  Robert,  vaccinated  by 
Jenner,  1801,  has  smallpox, 
1811,  318-321. 

Gull,  Dr.  Wm.,  asserts  vaccination 
as  protective  as  smallpox,  355, 
564;  evidence  House  of  Com- 
mons'committee,  1 87 1 , 564-565. 

Guy,  Dr.  W.  A.,  vaccination  a 
question  of  figures,  596. 

Guy's  Hospital,  1802,  275. 

Halford,  Sir  Henry,  319,  459. 

Halifax,  smallpox  in  18th  century, 
27,  30. 

Halifax,  Viscount,  compulsory 
vaccination,  572. 

Hall,  Sir  Benjamin,  letter  from 
John  Gibbs,  501. 

Hamernik,  Dr.  Joseph,  pustules 
from  tartar  emetic,  121  ; 
answer  to  Simon,  519-523. 

Hannen,  Mr.  Justice,  551. 

Hanover,  variolation,  34. 

Hart,  Ernest,  582. 

Haughton,  Dr.  Edward,  590. 

Hawes,  Dr.,  218, 

Haygarth,  Dr.,  57,  83,  569;  vario- 
lation in  Geneva,  61;  Chester 
smallpox,  69 ;  transmits  vac- 
cine virus  to  Boston,  376-377. 

Haynes,  William,  smallpox  and 
horsegrease,  117. 

Heaths  of  Hertford  variolated  by 
Maitland,  19-20. 

Heberden,  Dr.  William,  successful 
variolator,  140. 

Hecquet,  Dr.,  35. 

Henley,  J.  W.,  homely  sense  and 
sympathy  with  poor,  498,  499, 
531,  535,  536;  Lord  R.  Mon- 
tagu's nonsense,  539. 


Herpes,  interference  with  vaccina- 
tion, 340-343,  356. 

Hertford,  19,  20,  23,  48. 

Hervey.  Dr.  James,  459. 

Hicks,  Henry,  102,  134. 

Hicks,  Dr. ,  letter  to  Jenner  on  cow- 
pox  from  horsegrease,  133. 

Highlands  of  Scotland,  variolation 
practised,  29. 

Highmore,  Anthony,  tribute  to 
Woodville,  163. 

Hignells  vaccinated  by  Jenner, 
variolated  by  Freeman,  280. 

Hill,  Rev.  Rowland,  thundered  for 
vaccination,  290;  controversy 
with  Moseley,  293-296. 

Hjaltalin,  Dr.,  Iceland,  422. 

Hobbes,  583. 

Holland,  variolation  in,  62. 

Holland,  Lord,  letter  to  Jenner 
from  Madrid,  400. 

Holland,  Sir  Henry,  failure  of  vac- 
cination, 490. 

Holstein,  cowpox  believed  good 
against  smallpox,  94. 

Home,  Sir  Everard,  193,  459. 

Hooper's  Lexicon  Medicum,  271. 

Hopwood,  C.  H.,  577. 

Horsegrease,  Jenner  shows  his 
nephew  a  horse  with  diseased 
heels,  saying,  "There  is  the 
source  of  smallpox,"  97,  359, 
513;  belief  of  farriers  and  farm- 
ers that  cowpox  originated  in 
horsegrease,  100, 110,  111,  154, 
179;  originates  on  thigh  of  colt 
with  erysipelas,  112  ;  action 
indistinguishable  from  cow- 
pox,  157  ;  futile  inoculations 
of  cows  by  Dr.  Woodville  and 
others,  145,  259  ;  Jenner's  ac- 
count of  his  faith,  154  ;  Pear*- 
son  sets  aside  Jenner's  doc- 
trine, 153,  158,  178,  472,  512; 
considered  horsegrease  ' '  like 
to  damn  the  whole  thing,"  158, 
260,  336,  375  ;  Jenjier  dropped 
horsegrease,  180 ;  and  why, 
178,  260,  368,  375;  dropped 
and  resumed,  512  ;  not  a  word 
about  horsegrease  in  New  Eng- 
land, 375  ;  repudiated  by  Dr. 


606 


INDEX. 


Mason  Good,  263  ;  used  suc- 
cessfully by  Thomas  Tanner 
and  Loy,  263  ;  Sacco,  264,  405; 
and  De  Carro,  265,  405;  La 
Font,  265  ;  Melon,  267:  Baron, 
269  ;  and  by  Jenner,  267-268, 
271,  who  uses  and  distributes 
the  equine  virus,  268,  347  ;  ex- 
planation of  mystification,  270- 
272, 

Horsegrease  Cowpox,  Jenner's 
happy  thought  and  original 
prescription,  114,  201,  334, 
347,  472  ;  the  note  of  Inquiry, 
125,202;  Marson's  opinion,  562. 

Horsepox,  472,  568  ;  Prof.  Bouley's 
experiments,  273  ;  cases  de- 
scribed by  Mr.  Langton,  273  ; 
probable  resort  to,  273. 

Hosty,  Dr.,  report  on  variolation 
in  London,  59. 

Houlton,  Rev.  Robert,  engaged  to 
puff  Suttons,  46. 

House  of  Commons'  committee  on 
Jenner's  petition,  186-193  ;  re- 
>rt,  194  ;  vote,  £10,000, 
L802,  196  ;  vote,  £20,000, 
1807,  243-249  ;  committee, 
1871,  552-573. 

Howgrave,  Francis,  opposes  vario- 
lation, 31. 

Hufeland,  tartar  emetic  for  vac- 
cine virus,  121,  348. 

Hume,  Joseph,  exposure  of  malver- 
sation of  public  money  by  Na- 
tional Vaccine  Establishment, 
460. 

Hume-Rothery,  Mrs.,  548,  578. 

Hume-Rothery.  Wm.,  548,  578; 
evidence  House  of  Commons' 
committee,  1871,  556. 

Hunter,  John,  "Don't  think,  but 
try,"  98  ;  relations  with  Jen- 
ner, 91-93,  348  ;  heard  of  cow- 
pox  from  Jenner,  136,  193  ; 
two  diseased  actions  in  same 
part  cannot  occur  simultane- 
ously, 164. 

Hutchins's  History  of  Dorset,  85. 

Hutchinson,  Jonathan,  evidence 
House  of  Commons'  commit- 
tee, 1871,  567-568. 


poi 
18( 


Huxham,  John,  521. 
Hydrophobia,     inoculation,     359, 
371. 

Iceland,  smallpox  and  vaccination, 
420-423  ;  measles,  422. 

India,  vaccination  introduced,  383- 
393  ;  variolators  bribed,  386  ; 
frauds  practised,  387-388;  sub- 
scriptions for  Jenner,  390  ; 
Sir  Richard  Temple  on  vacci- 
nation at  this  day,  391. 

Indians  vaccinated  by  Balmis, 
402  ;  fabulous  stories  of  small- 
pox, 402. 

Ingatestone,  Suttons'  variolation 
establishment,  45. 

Ingenhousz,  Dr.,  discovers  Jen- 
ner's mis-statements,  130-132, 
140. 

Inoculation.     See  Variolation. 

inquiry,  Jenner's,  publication,  102 ; 
analysis,  103-127  ;  pronounced 
by  Simon  a  masterpiece  of  me- 
dical induction,  103,  333  ;  its 
essential  doctrine,  335;  printed 
last  time  in  1801,  337  ;  why 
kept  out  of  print,  344. 

Inquiry,  Pearson's,  136. 

Ireland,  variolation  introduced, 
34 ;  practised  after  prohibi- 
tion, 474  ;  distress  a  cause  of 
smallpox,  472  ;  fees  for  vac- 
cination, 489 ;  vaccination  said 
by  Sir  Dominic  Corrigan  in 
1871  to  have  practically  ex- 
tinguished smallpox,  561. 

Irish  oppression,  593. 

Italy,  Sacco's  vaccinations,  403- 
404. 

Itch  prevents  vaccination,  126, 277. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  letter  to  Jen- 
ner, 380. 

Jeffrey,  Francis,  289  ;  fury  of 
vaccination  controversy,  290  ; 
contrary  to  all  analogy  that 
vaccination  wears  out,  302  ; 
homicidal  article  in  Edinburgh 
Review,  364  ;  declining  faith 
in  vaccination,  365. 

Jelly  by,  Mrs.,  322. 


INDEX. 


607 


Jenner,  Edward,  regimen  prior  to 
variolation,  45;  birth  and  edu- 
cation, 91 ;  relations  with  John 
Hunter,  92-93 ;  Sodbury  legend, 
93;  a  bore  about  cowpox,  95 ; 
miraculous  prevision,  95  ; 
Gardner's  questionable  remi- 
niscences, 97,  122;  horse  with 
greasy  heels  the  origin  of  small- 
pox, 97, 359;  marriage  in  1788, 
97;  a  good  hand  at  verses,  97; 
purchase  of  degree  from  St. 
Andrews,  98  ;  inoculates  son 
with  swinepox,  98  ;  experi- 
ments with  cowpox,  98-99 ; 
origin  of  cowpox  in  horsegrease 
beyond  denial,  100;  difficulty 
of  proof,  100. 

First  vaccination,  1796,  101; 
publishes  Inquiry,  1798,  102; 
describes  cowpox,  109;  tries  in 
vain  to  generate  it  from  horse- 
grease,  110  -  112  ;  invents 
spurious  cowpox,  113;  denies 
virtue  for  cowpox  and  asserts 
it  for  horsegrease  cowpox,  114; 
cases  of  horsegrease,  115;  fancy 
as  to  origin  of  smallpox,  120, 
359,  513  ;  absolute  security 
from  smallpox  after  horse - 
grease  cowpox,  121  ;  cowpox 
as  an  expulsive  irritant,  123 ; 
single  point  of  originality,  124; 
visit  to  London,  1798,  127; 
without  cowpox,  129;  advised 
by  Cline  to  settle  in  London, 
129;  difference  with  Ingen- 
housz,  130-132  ;  favourable 
reception  of  Inquiry,  134 ; 
Pearson  claims  association, 
134;  brickbats  flying  around, 
135  ;  cowpox  always  erysi- 
pelatous,  143  ;  uses  cowpox 
from  London,  147;  jealousy  of 
Pearson,  147;  inquiries  at  a 
stand,  148;  visits  London  to 
counteract  Pearson  and  Wood- 
ville,  148  ;  anxious,  fretful, 
helpless,  151;  Further  Obser- 
vations, 1799,  152;  purpose  and 
poverty  of  pamphlet,  152  ; 


differences  with  Pearson  and 
Woodville,  158  ;  slovenly  and 
incomplete  knowledge,  158 ; 
Vaccine  Pock  Institution,  160- 
161;  Continuation  of  Facts  and 
Observations,  1800, 163;  annex- 
ation of  Pearson  and  Wood- 
ville's  work,  163-164,  181; 
re-asserts  the  abiding  prophy- 
laxy of  cowpox,  166  ;  tries  to 
undermine  Vaccine  Pock  Insti- 
tution, 167;  reception  by  King 
and  Queen,  171;  John  Ring's 
alliance,  172,  176 ;  presented 
with  plate,  1801,  176;  finds 
honour  windy  fare,  177;  deter- 
mines to  drop  horsegrease, 
178,  180;  mode  of  transforma- 
tion, 178;  Origin  of  the  Vaccine 
inoculation,  1801,  178;  claims 
discovery  of  cowpox,  179,  and 
discriminates  true  from 
spurious,  180;  artful  explana- 
tions, 182-183  ;  application  to 
Lord  Sherborne,  183;  prepares 
petition,  184-185,  which  is  re- 
ferred to  committee  of  House 
of  Commons,  186 ;  evidence 
before  committee,  186-194; 
claim  limited  to  conveyance 
of  cowpox  from  arm  to  arm, 
193;  voted  £10,000  by  House 
of  Commons,  196. 

Jenner's  case  examined  by 
Pearson,  197-203  ;  could  he 
have  taken  a  patent  ?  207; 
factitious  glory,  215  ;  delay  in 
payment  of  £10,000,  216;  fate 
as  London  physician,  216  ; 
Royal  Jennerian  Society,  218- 
219;  head  turned  with  adula- 
tion, 221  ;  uxorious  habits, 
222  ;  quarrel  with  Walker, 
225-226  ;  wreck  of  Royal 
Jennerian  Society,  227;  impe- 
cuniosity,  228  ;  shyness,  230  ; 
"the  cowpox  doctor,"  230; 
plans  for  pecuniary  relief,  231; 
reference  of  Parliament  to 
Royal  College  of  Physicians, 
232-234;  Jenner's  evidence 


608 


INDEX. 


and  disownment  of  spurious 
cowpox,  239-240;  voted 
£20,000,  243-248;  director  of 
National  Vaccine  Establish- 
ment, 255;  withdraws  and  ex- 
pects sensation,  256  ;  sulking 
at  Berkeley,  257;  tactics  as  to 
horsegrease,  259,  262,  263  ; 
what  did  he  discover  ?  261  ; 
swinepox,  262  ;  reverts  to 
original  position,  264,  267  ; 
uses  and  diffuses  horsepox, 
268-269;  a  slovenly  investi- 
gator, 270,  272  ;  Birch  on 
spurious  cowpox,  277  -  278  ; 
pestered  with  failures,  280-281 ; 
Birch  "a  sad  wicked  fellow," 
283  ;  treatment  of  Goldson, 
285;  claim  to  absence  of.  fail- 
ures, 287;  friendship  with  Rev. 
Rowland  Hill,  294. 

Miraculous  quality  of  Jen- 
ner's  contempt,  301;  split  with 
Walker,  307;  vaccinates  sons 
of  Sir  Richard  Phillips  and 
Philip  Codd,  who  afterwards 
had  smallpox,  312-313;  also  of 
Earl  Grosvenor,  318-321;  the 
slush  his  followers  had  to  march 
through,  315;  dislike  of  Walker 
and  his  Institution,  324;  Ring 
as  bully  and  libeller,  324-330 ; 
Jenner's  later  writings,  333- 
348 ;  why  Inquiry  was  sup- 
pressed, 333-337;  mystery  of 
horsegrease,  334-336;  experi- 
ments with  horsegrease  on 
cows,  335 ;  spurious  cowpox 
dodge,  336;  herpes  and  vacci- 
nation, 340-342;  elusion  of 
variolous  test,  342;  smallpox 
flying  in  all  directions,  344- 
345 ;  comparative  London 
mortalities,  346  ;  successive 
poxes  for  vaccination,  347-348, 
525;  final  publication  on  Tar- 
tar Emetic,  348;  Baron's  bio- 
graphy, 349-363;  meeting  with 
Baron,  349-350 ;  treatment  of 
adversaries,  350  -  352,  474  ; 
investigation  resented,  352 ; 


appropriation  of  work  of 
others,  352-353  ;  denial  that 
influence  of  vaccination  wore 
out,  353;  Lord  Ellen  borough, 
353-354,357;  dying  testimony 
to  vaccination,  354 ;  contri- 
vances to  break  his  fall,  355- 
356;  variolation  of  son  and 
scandal,  357-358 ;  insanitary 
house  and  sickly  family,  85, 
318,  358-359,  448 ;  belief  that 
human  diseases  originated  in 
animals,  97,  359 ;  suggested 
extension  of  vaccination,  359- 
360;  much  adulation  excused 
self-deception, 360;  abhorrence 
of  London, 361;  exclusion  from 
Royal  College  of  Physicians, 
361;  presentation  to  Emperor 
Alexander,  362;  death  of  Mrs. 
Jenner,  1815,  3(32;  perplexities 
toward  close  of  life,  362;  death, 
1823,  362  ;  funeral  and  me- 
morials, 363;  statue  in  London, 
363  ;  sends  equine  virus  to 
Edinburgh,  368;  tactics  as  con- 
cerned horsegrease,  375;  sends 
gold  box  to  Dr.  Waterhouse, 
378;  project  and  reward  for 
conveyance  of  virus  to  India, 
383-384;  vaccination  in  Madras 
and  Bombay,  388;  tribute  from 
India,  390;  Sweden  and  Ceylon, 
392;  medal  from  naval  officers, 
398;  anecdote  of  Napoleon, 400. 
Arithmetical  incapacity, 
415,  423;  reason  for  vote  of 
£20,000,453;  denial  of  spurious 
cowpox,  454;  deceived  as  to 
National  Vaccine  Establish- 
ment, 454-456  ;  insolence  to- 
ward Brown  of  Musselburgh, 
457-458;  his  virus  the  stock 
of  National  Vaccine  Establish- 
ment, 472-473 ;  treatment  of 
opponents,  474;  did  not  intro- 
duce cowpox,  512;  smallpox 
from  horse  through  cow,  513; 
vaccinates  King's  staghounds, 
515;  ruthless,  untruthful, 
mercenary,  578. 


INDEX. 


JENNER'S 

PUBLICATIONS  ON  VACCINATION  AND  SUCCESSIVE  ASSURANCES. 

An  Inquiry  into  the  Cause  and  Effects  of  the  Variolce  Vaccince, 
a  Disease  discovered  in  some  of  the  Western  Counties  of  Eng- 
land, particularly  Gloucestershire,  and  known  by  the  name  of 
the  Cow  Pox.  London :  1798. 

1798. — What  renders  the  Cow  Pox  Virus  so  extremely  singular  is,  that 
the  person  who  has  been  thus  affected  is  for  ever  after  secure  from 
the  infection  of  the  Small  Pox ;  neither  the  exposure  to  the 
variolous  effluvia,  nor  the  insertion  of  the  matter  into  the  skin, 
producing  this  distemper. 

It  is  curious  to  observe,  that  the  virus,  which  with  respect  to  its  effects 
is  undetermined  and  uncertain  previously  to  its  passing  from  the 
horse  through  the  medium  of  the  cow,  should  then  not  only  become 
more  active,  but  should  invariably  and  completely  possess  those 
specific  properties  which  induce  in  the  human  constitution  symptoms 
similar  to  those  of  the  variolous  fever,  and  effect  in  it  that  peculiar 
change  which  for  ever  renders  it  unsusceptible  of  the  variolous 
contagion. 

It  clearly  appears  that  this  disease  leaves  the  constitution  in  a  state  of 
perfect  security  from  the  infection  of  the  Small  Pox.— Pp.  121,  337. 

Further  Observations  on  the  Variolce  Vaccines.    London:  1799. 

1799. — The  result  of  all  my  trials  with  the  virus  on  the  human  subject 
has  been  uniform.  In  every  instance  the  patient  who  has  felt  its 
influence  has  completely  lost  the  susceptibility  for  the  variolous 
contagion.— Pp.  152-158,  336. 

A  Continuation  of  Facts  and  Observations  relative  to  the 
Variolce  Vaccince,  or  Cow  Pox.  London :  1800. 

1800. — The  scepticism  that  appeared  even  among  the  most  enlightened 
of  medical  men,  when  my  sentiments  on  the  important  subject  of 
the  Cow  Pox  were  first  promulgated,  was  highly  laudable.  To 
have  admitted  the  truth  of  a  doctrine,  at  once  so  novel  and  so 
unlike  anything  that  had  ever  appeared  in  the  Annals  of  Medicine, 
without  the  test  of  the  most  rigid  scrutiny,  would  have  bordered 
upon  temerity  ;  but  now,  when  that  scrutiny  has  taken  place,  not 
only  among  ourselves,  but  in  the  first  professional  circles  in  Europe, 
and  when  it  has  been  uniformly  found  in  such  abundant  instances, 
that  the  human  frame,  when  once  it  has  felt  the  influence  of  the 
genuine  Cow  Pox  in  the  way  that  has  been  described,  is  never 
afterwards,  at  any  period  of  its  existence,  assailable  by  the  Small 
Pox,  may  I  not  with  perfect  confidence  congratulate  my  country 
and  society  at  large  on  their  beholding  in  the  mild  form  of  the  Cow 
Pox,  an  antidote  that  is  capable  of  extirpating  from  the  earth  a 
disease  which  is  every  hour  devouring  its  victims  ;  a  disease  that 
has  ever  been  considered  as  the  severest  scourge  of  the  human 
race.— Pp.  166,  338-339,  357,  365,  473. 
40 


610  INDEX. 


The  Origin  of  Vaccine  Inoculation.     London:  1801. 

1801. — It  now  becomes  too  manifest  to  admit  of  controversy,  that  the 
annihilation  of  the  Small  Pox,  the  most  dreadful  scourge  of  the 
human  species,  must  be  the  final  result  of  this  practice. — P.  183. 

Petition  for  Remuneration  to  House  of  Commons.    1802. 

1802. — Cow  Pox  admits  of  being  inoculated  on  the  human  frame  with 
the  most  perfect  ease  and  safety,  and  is  attended  with  the 
singularly  beneficial  effect  of  rendering  through  life  the  persons  so 
inoculated  perfectly  secure  from  the  infection  of  the  Small  Pox. — 
Pp.  184,  337,  355. 

On  the  Varieties  and  Modifications  of  the  Vaccine  Pustule 
occasioned  by  an  Herpetic  State  of  the  Skin.  Printed  in  Medi- 
cal and  Physical  Journal,  August,  1804;  and  reprinted  as  a 
pamphlet,  Cheltenham,  1806,  and  Gloucester,  1819.— P.  340. 

VACCINATION  EQUAL  TO  VARIOLATION. 

1804. — What  I  have  said  on  Vaccination  is  true.  If  properly  conducted 
*  it  secures  the  constitution  as  much  as  Variolous  Inoculation  possi- 
bly can. — Baron's  Life  of  Je finer,  vol.  ii.  p.  15. 

Duly  and  efficiently  performed,  Vaccination  will  protect  the  constitu- 
tion from  subsequent  attacks  of  Small  Pox  as  much  as  that  disease 
itself  will.  I  never  expected  that  it  would  do  more,  and  it  will  not, 
I  believe,  do  less.—  Ibid.  p.  135. 

1806. — The  security  given  to  the  constitution  by  Vaccine  Inoculation  is 
exactly  equal  to  that  given  by  the  Variolous.  To  expect  more 
from  it  would  be  wrong.  As  failures  in  the  latter  are  constantly 
presenting  themselves,  we  must  expect  to  find  them  in  the  former 
also.—  Letter  to  Richard  Dunning,  1st  March,  1806.— Pp.  339,  355. 

Facts  for  the  most  part  unobserved  or  not  duly  noticed  res- 
pecting Variolous  Contagion.  London :  1808. 

1808. — It  should  be  remembered  that  the  constitution  cannot,  by  previous 
infection,  be  rendered  totally  insusceptible  of  the  Variolous  Poison. 
Neither  the  casual,  nor  the  inoculated  Small  Pox,  whether  it  produce 
the  disease  in  a  mild  or  violent  way,  can  perfectly  extinguish  the 
susceptibility.— P.  338. 

Letter  to  William  Dillwyn  on  the  Effects  of  Vaccination  in 
Preserving  from  the  Small  Pox.  Philadelphia:  1818. 

1818. — My  confidence  in  the  efficacy  of  Vaccination  to  guard  the 
constitution  from  Small  Pox  is  not  in  the  least  diminished.  That 
exceptions  to  the  rule  have  appeared,  and  that  they  will  appear,  I 
am  ready  to  admit.  They  have  happened  after  Small  Pox  Inocula- 
tion ;  and  by  the  same  rule,  as  the  two  diseases  are  so  similar,  they 
will  also  happen  after  Vaccine  Inoculation. — P.  344. 


INDEX.  611 


LAST  TESTIMONY. 

1823.  —  My  opinion  of  Vaccination  is  precisely  as  it  was  when  I  first 
promulgated  the  discovery.  It  is  not  in  the  least  strengthened  by 
any  event  that  has  happened,  for  it  could  gain  no  strength  ;  it  is 
not  in  the  least  weakened  ;  for  if  the  failures  you  speak  of  had  not 
happened,  the  truth  of  my  assertions  respecting  those  coincidences 
which  occasioned  them  would  not  have  been  made  out.  —  P.  354. 

The  whole  of  Jenner's  claims  re-asserted  for  Smallpox  Cowpox  by  Mr. 
John  Simon,  after  Inoculation  with  which  —  • 

1857.  —  "Neither  renewed  vaccination,  nor  inoculation  with  Smallpox, 
nor  the  closest  contact  and  cohabitation  with  smallpox  patients, 
will  occasion  him  to  betray  any  remnant  of  susceptibility  to  infec- 
tion." —  Papers  relating  to  the  History  and  Practice  of  Vaccination. 
London:  1857.—  P.  513. 

JENNER'S  SUCCESSIVE  POXES 

In  their  order,  124,  185,  207,  240,  334-338,  347-348,  472-473,  512-513. 
Cowpox,  first  faith,  93-95,  99,  114,  334. 
Swinepox,  98,  99,  262. 

Cowpox  did  not  prevent  smallpox,  99,  113,  143,  179,  201,  347,  512. 
Horsegrease,  97,  99-100,  104,  124,  142,  273,  335. 
Spurious  Cowpox  defined,  99,  113-114. 
Horsegrease  Cowpox,  100,  110-114,  119-121,  124-125,  153-155,  198,  201, 

259-274,  335,  375. 

Horsegrease  dropped,  178-180,  201-203,  260,  266,  375. 
Cowpox  resumed,  180-183,  202-203,  512. 

Spurious  Cowpox  dropped,  239-240,  277-278,  314,  336,  356,  454. 
Horsegrease  or  Horsepox  adopted  neat,  229,   264-273  ;  the  true  and 

fenuine  life-preserving  fluid,  269  ;  equine  virus  sent  to  Edinburgh, 
68.     Sacco's  practice,  264,  267,  336,  512,  and  De  Carro's,  265,  405. 

LETTERS  FROM  JENNER  TO—  Dr.  DE  CARRO,  Vienna. 

John  ADDINGTON,  Surgeon.  1803.  —  Opposition  to  horse- 

1802.—  Detained  at  .Berkeley  grease  hindered  vaccin- 

by  domestic  joys  .........     218  atlon  .........................     265 

1804.—  Cannot  leave  his  wife    222  »     —Transmission  of  virus 

to  India  .....................     385 

John  BARON,  M.D. 


1810.-Denunciation  of  Brown  W-  DI^VYN,  Walthamstow. 

of  Musselburgh  ...........     351  1818.—  Difficulties  which  at- 

1811.—  London  and  the  Gros-  tend  vaccination  .......  341-345 

1818.  -The  truaeSta6nd  genuine    '  Richard  DUNNING,  Surgeon, 

life  preservingfluid  from  Plymouth. 

a  horse  ......................     269  1804.—  Terms  Vaccinate  and 

-  .—Vaccination     equiva-  Vaccination  ................     229 

lent  to  smallpox  ..........     355  „     —Herpes    the    pest   of 

vaccination  .................     340 

Miss  CALCRAFT.  1804.  —John  Ring  and  Gold- 

1811.  —  Apology  for  Grosve-  son  ...........................     351 

nor  disaster  ................     320  ,,     —  Despotism    in    India    385 


612 


INDEX. 


1804. — England    compared 

with  India 389 

1805.— Potatoes 89 

1808. — Vaccination  equal  to 

variolation 339 

,,  Wicked  opposition  in 

London 361 

1807.— Odd  notion  about 

Hindoo  women 390 

. — Vaccination  in  Chinese  394 

Dr.  FLEMING,  Calcutta. 
1806. — Vaccination  and  vari- 
olation in  England 390 

A  FRIEND. 
1794. — Origin  of  cowpox  in 

horsegrease  beyond  denial   100 
1797.— Difficulty   of    raising 

cowpox  fromhorsegrease    100 
1804. — Experience  as  London 

physician 216-217 

Edward  GARDNER. 
1796. — First  arm  to  arm  vac- 
cination       101 

1798.— True  and  false  cowpox      99 
„     —Perplexity    and    agi- 
tation      129 

, ,     — Conceit  and  ignorance 

of  Ingenhousz 131 

1798.— Brickbats  flyingaround  135 
1 799.  —Counteract  Pearson . .     147 
,,     — Extreme   pains  with 

Further  Observations ....     1 52 
1823. — Homicidal  Edinburgh 

Review...,  ,     364 


Dr.  INGENHOUSZ. 
1 798.  — Prophylaxy  of  cowpox 
certain  and  permanent. . 


131 


Andrew  JOHNSTONE. 
1813. — Declines  to  preside  over 
United  London  Vaccine 
Institution  and    Royal 
Jennerian  Society 323 

Dr.  LETTSOM. 

1811.— Perversity  of  London: 
comfort  in  Asia  and 
America....  ....  321 


James  MOORE. 

1808.— Family  afflictions 255 

1809.— Sir  Lucas  Pepys 255 

,,     — Expected  astonishment  256 

,,     Views  and  wrongs 257 

1810. — Impudence    of    John 

Gale  Jones 301 

1812. — Vaccination  in  Prussia    405 
1813.— Fresh  evidenceof  cow- 
pox  from  horsegrease  ...     267 
,,     — Has  been  equinating 

for  months 267 

,,     — Experience  with  horse- 
greased  carters 268 

,,     — Proper  variety  of 


equine  virus... 

•\Tl7«4-4-'™          *v»Jr 


270 
—Watt's     mischievous 

discovery 451 

1816. — Cowpox  likely  to  cease 
through  'disappearance 

of  horsegrease 269 

, ,     — Bad  virus  of  National 

Vaccine  Establishment.     458 


142 


Dr.  George  PEARSON. 

1798. — Cowpox  follows  cow- 
pox  

,,  — Vaccination  always 

erysipelatous 143 

1799.— Refusal  to  join  Vac- 
cine Pock  Institution ...  161 

John  RING,  Surgeon. 
1801. — Ignorance  of  time  for 

taking  virus 181 

W.  F.  SHRAPNELL. 
1794.— Typhus  at  Berkeley..  85 
1800. — Success  in  London....  171 
.—Praise  of  John  Ring..  173 

Dr.  William  WOODVILLE. 
1799.— Success  with  Wood- 

ville's  London  virus 149 

Rev.  Dr.  WORTHINGTON. 
1810.— Away  with  Malthus  !      89 
,,     — While   variolation  is 
practised  smallpox  can- 
not be  subdued 72,  390 


INDEX. 


613 


LETTERS  TO  JENNER  FROM— 

John  ADDINGTON,  Surgeon. 
1802.— Royal  Jennerian 

Society 218 

Henry  CLINE,  Surgeon. 
1798.— Experiments    with 

cowpox 128 

Dr.  Erasmus  DARWIN. 
1802.— Christening  and  vac- 
cination united 276 

Dr.  DE  CARRO,  Vienna. 
1803.— Horsegrease  Jenner's 

distinction 405 

Joseph  Fox. 
1802.— Royal  Jennerian 

Society 218 

Dr.  HICKS,  Bristol. 
1798. — Cowpox  from  horse- 
grease.... 133 

Lord  HOLLAND. 
1803. — Vaccination  in  Spain    400 

John  HUNTER. 
. — Puffing  Jenner's  tar- 
tar emetic 93 

Dr.  INGENHOUSZ. 
1798. — Adverse  inquiries  as 

to  cowpox 130 

Thomas  JEFFERSON. 
1806.— Glorifies  vaccination.     380 

Rev.  G.  C.  JENNER. 
1799. — Excites    jealousy    of 

Pearson 147 

Francis  KNIGHT,  Surgeon. 
1798.— Attests  country  faith 

in  cowpox 132 

Dr.  MARSHALL. 
1801.— Vaccination  in  Naples    398 


Dr.  George  PEARSON. 

1798. — Associates  himself  with 
Jenner  and  reports  public 
dislike  of  horsegrease...  134 

1799. — Invitation  to  join  Vac- 
cine Pock  Institution ...     1 60 

Dr.  PERCIVAL,  Manchester. 
1798. — Failure  to  get  cowpox 

from  horsegrease 133 

Dr.  SACCO,  Milan. 

1808. — Miraculous  exploits 

asvaccinator 403 

Lord  SHERBORNE. 
1801. — Advice  as  to  petition 

for  reward 184 

Benjamin  TR AVERS. 
1803.— Royal  Jennerian 

Society 219 

Dr.  UNDERWOOD,  Madras. 
1801.— Dread  of  variolation. .     383 

Dr.  Benjamin  WATERHOUSE. 
1 801 .  — Vaccination  accounted 
beastly   and    indelicate 

in  Philadelphia 374 

, ,     — Dexterous    manage- 
ment of  vaccination 377 

,,     — Vaccinates  cows 378 

,,     — Cows  with  smallpox. .     379 


Jenner,  Edward,  inoculated  with 
swinepox,  1789,  and  subjected 
to  variolous  test,  98,  262. 

Jenner,  Rev.  George  C.,  sent  to 
Colchester  to  vaccinate  85th 
Regiment,  126;  excites  Jenner's 
jealousy  against  Pearson,  147; 
bears  witness  before  committee 
of  House  of  Commons,  1802, 
192  ;  asserts  he  had  never  had 
one  failure  with  vaccination, 
287. 

Jenner,  Robert  F.,  vaccinated,  118; 
variolated,  357;  scandal,  358. 


614 


INDEX. 


Jenner,  Mrs.,  marriage,  1788,  97  ; 
habitual  invalidism,  222;  death, 
1815,  362. 

Jenner,  Sir  William,  evidence 
before  committee  of  House  of 
Commons,  1871,  564. 

Jenneric  Opera,  Walker's,  325. 

Jervoise,  Sir  J.  Clarke,  590;  op- 
poses compulsory  vaccination, 
1867,  538;  evidence  before 
committee  of  House  of  Com- 
mons, 1871,  554. 

Jesty,  Benjamin,  claim  to  cowpox 
inoculation,  94,  204,  245 ; 
invited  to  London  and  portrait 
painted,  205  ;  put  to  variolous 
test,  205;  epitaph  at  Worth 
Matravers,  206 ;  distinction 
from  Jenner,  206. 

Johnson.  Dr.,  condition  of  sailors, 
397. 

Johnstone,  Andrew,  322. 

Jones,  John  Gale,  301. 

Jordan,  Mrs.,  171. 

Joules,  the  oxfaced  boy,  298. 

Jurin,  Dr..  mortality  of  London 
smallpox,  25,  373 ;  conditions 
of  variolation,  30. 

Justice,  Mr.,  Axminster,  inoculates 
with  cowpox,  138. 

Keats,  Mr. ,  introduces  vaccination 
to  British  army,  151. 

Keighley  guardians  committed  to 
York  Castle  and  released  to 
do  as  before,  575. 

Keith,  Dr.,  13  ;  son  variolated,  22. 

Keith,  Lord,  397. 

Kemp,  Mrs.  E.,  555. 

Kendall,  Mr.,  vaccination  of  poor, 
536. 

Kennedy,  P.,  1. 

Kinepox,  374,  377. 

Kirkpatrick,  Dr.,  denied  that 
smallpox  followed  variolation, 
41 ;  etiquette  of  variolation, 
44,  and  success,  45. 

Knight,  Francis,  attests  prevalent 
faith  in  cowpox,  132 ;  vac- 
cinates Duke  of  Clarence's 
children,  171. 

Knowles,  J.  Sheridan,  227,  250. 


Kolb,  G.  F.,  Bavarian  vaccination 
and  smallpox,  596. 

Ladies'  Sanitary  Association,  547, 
548. 

La  Font  of  Salonica,  265,  267. 

Lanark,  New,  smallpox  among 
vaccinated,  1818,  366. 

Lancashire,  Leigh's  Natural  History 
of,  3;  vaccination  hated  in,  591. 

Lancet,  The,  vaccination  failures 
and  dangers,  502-503  ;  refuses 
advertisements  against  vac- 
cination, 582. 

Lane,  Mrs.  General,  509. 

Langrish,  Dr.,  variolator,  40. 

Langton,  John,  case  of  horsegrease, 
273. 

Lankester,  Coroner,  falsifies  certi- 
ficate of  death,  68,  555. 

Lansdowne,  Marquis  of,  130. 

Leeds,  mortality  of  smallpox  in 
18th  century,  30  ;  Mr.  Picker- 
ing's exposure  of  fraudulent 
statistics,  575. 

Lefevre,  Shaw,  opposes  grant  to 
Jenner,  244. 

Leicester,  585. 

Leighton,  Andrew,  589. 

Leprosy  induced  by  vaccination  in 
West  Indies,  559. 

Lettsom,  Dr.,  Society  for  General 
Inoculation,  49 ;  denounces 
1  inoculation,  71  ;  bears  witness 
for  Jenner,  187 ;  ascription  of 
London  smallpox  to  United 
Kingdom,  187,  208-209,  212, 
215,  295;  Royal  Jennerian 
Society,  219,  220;  pceans  for 
Jenner,  290 ;  letter  from  Jenuer 
on  perversity  of  London,  321 ; 
sends  virus  to  Dr.  W  aterhouse, 
Boston,  376;  letter  from  Water- 
house,  378. 

Lewis,  Marianne,  "  the  mangey 
girl,  "299. 

Lichfield  Cathedral,  52. 

Lindblom,  Archbishop,  411. 

Lipscomb,  Mr.,  anti-vaccinator, 
290. 

Lister,  Dr.,  Cline's  experiment, 
128. 


INDEX. 


615 


Liverpool  mortality,  451. 

Lyttelton,  Lord,  instrument  of 
Epidemiological  Society,  480- 
481 ;  confession  of  personal 
ignorance,  480,  491. 

Local  Government  Board,  repeated 
penalties,  577. 

London,  condition  1701  to  1722, 
25 ;  population  in  18th  century 
unknown  with  accuracy,  77 ; 
prodigious  infantile  mortality, 
80 ;  manner  of  life  of  citizens, 
80 ;  overcrowding  and  defec- 
tive light  and  water,  81 ;  cess- 
pools, and  rain  the  chief 
scavenger,  82 ;  graveyards, 
and  church-going  a  cause  of 
illness,  82 ;  no  standard  for 
England  or  the  world,  83,  347; 
influence  of  variolation  on 
smallpox,  86 ;  diet  of  inhabi- 
tants, 88  ;  considered  by  Jen- 
ner  the  centre  of  opposition  to 
vaccination,  321  ;  variolation 
revived,  1806,  321. 

London  Bills  of  Mortality,  1701-22, 
24 ;  fallacy  of  taking  them  as 
standard  of  other,  populations, 
25;  untrustworthiness,  26,  77; 
how  got  up,  26,  78 ;  evidence 
as  to  disease,  1791-1800  and 
1801-1810,  223-224. 

London  Corporation,  subscription 
to  Royal  Jennerian  Society, 
220. 

London  Medical  Gazette,  1844, 
"  revaccinate,  revaccinate," 
473. 

London  Medical  Repository,  1821, 
Ring's  libels  on  Walker,  329. 

London  Smallpox,  1701  to  1722, 
24-25;  heaviest  and  lightest 
years  in  18th  century,  79  ;  no 
standard  for  smallpox  else- 
where, 25,  208-210,  347,  431, 
433  ;  did  not  raise  death-rate, 

210  ;  ever  present  waxing  and 
waning,  211  ;  unchecked  and 
cultivated    yet     diminishing, 

211  ;  decline  ascribed  to  vac- 
cination,  222-225;    statistics, 
1791-1800,  223;  and  1801-1810, 


224 ;  diminishing  in  common 
with  fevers  before  vaccination, 
346  ;  before  and  after  vaccina- 
tion, 487  ;  a  natural  pheno- 
menon, 511 ;  no  epidemic  from 
1796  to  1825,  562 ;  prevalence 
prior  to  outbreak  of  Franco- 
German  war,  1870,  562. 

London  and  Boston  Smallpox,  373; 
Norwich,433;  Vienna,  232, 369. 

London  Smallpox  Hospitals,  sermon 
of  Bishop  Maddox,  40. 

London  Society  for  Abolition  of 
Compulsory  Vaccination  insti- 
tuted, 1880,  580. 

London  Vaccination,  decline  of 
smallpox  ascribed  to,  222-225; 
Lord  Henry  Petty's  speech, 
1806,  232  ;  its  vicarious  opera- 
tion, 295,  324  ;  extension 
checked,  301 ;  statistics  from 
1791  to  1820,  346;  in  1816, 
456 ;  development  of  a  fabulous 
salvation,  466-468. 

LondonVaccinelnstitution  founded 
1806,  227;  petitions  Govern- 
ment for  assistance,  250 ; 
annexes  Royal  Jennerian  So- 
ciety, 322-324,  453,  457 ;  num- 
ber of  vaccinations,  1803  to 
1826,  323;  character  of  agents, 
325 ;  charged  with  fraud  and 
imposture,  326-329 ;  diplomas, 
330  ;  tribute  to  Walker,  333  ; 
thrives  despite  National  Vac- 
cine Establishment,  457,  458, 
460. 

Louisa,  Princess,  introduces  vac- 
cination to  Berlin,  151. 

Louis  XV.,  died  of  second  attack 
of  smallpox,  60. 

Lowe,  Robert,  passes  Vaccination 
Act,  1861,  526;  romance  and 
rant,  526-527;  asserts  that 
smallpox  is  transmuted  to 
smallpox,  and  that  security 
from  smallpox  is  proportioned 
to  vaccination  marks,  528; 
denunciation  of  anti-vacci- 
nators,  528 ;  the  Act  a  failure, 
530 ;  [sneers  at  Mr.  Henley, 
536. 


616 


INDEX. 


Lowell,  J.  Russell,  595,  596. 
Loy,  Dr.,  horsegrease  inoculation, 

263,  265,  336. 
Lucas,  John,  590. 
LudloAV,  Mr.,  Sodbury  and  Jenner, 

91. 
Lues  Bovilla,  292. 

MacLaren,  Duncan,  573. 

Maddox,  Bishop,  40. 

Madras,  vaccination  introduced, 
388 ;  subscription  to  Jenner, 
390. 

Madrid,  vaccination,  400;  use  of 
goatpox,  401. 

Maitland,  Charles,  adviser  of  Lady 
M.  W.  Montagu,  10 ;  variola- 
tion  of  her  son,  11,  and  her 
daughter,  12 ;  variolates  in 
Newgate,  15-16 ;  the  Batts  and 
Heaths,  19  ;  in  Aberdeenshire 
and  Hanover,  34 ;  defence  of 
variolation,  18 ;  controversy 
with  Massey,  28 ;  Prince  of 
Wales  promoted  his  experi- 
ments, 171. 

Malthus,  244,  245 ;  vicarious 
mortality,  569-570. 

Manchester,  •  experiments  with 
horsegrease,  133 ;  address  of 
Cow  Pox  Dispensary,  169;  vac- 
cination widely  practised,  175. 

Mar,  Countess  of,  21. 

Marcolini,  523. 

Maria  Teresa  variolated  by  Ingen- 
housz,  130. 

Marks,  Vaccine,  protective  power 
of  many  according  to  Robert 
Lowe,  528 ;  Mr.  Henley's 
observation,  535 ;  Marson's 
whimsical  notion,  561. 

Marlborough,  Duke  of,  8. 

Marlow,  Dr.,  Oxford,  176. 

Marseilles,  vaccination  found  use- 
less in  1828,  520. 

Marshall,  John,  experiments  with 
horsegrease,  335. 

Marshall,  Dr.  Joseph,  witness  for 
Jenner,  189 ;  first  cowpox 
missionary,  220,  396,  397. 

Marson,  J.  Furness,  smallpox  after 
smallpox,  355;  petitions  Parlia- 


ment, 1856,  for  more  stringent 
vaccination  laws,  497  ;  judge 
of  prize  essays,  547  ;  evidence 
before  House  of  Commons' 
committee,  1871,  561-563 ; 
whimsical  notion  about  marks, 
561  ;  other  assertions  and  ad- 
missions, 562 ;  ferocious  and 
foolish  calumny,  563 ;  ruthless, 
untruthful,  mercenary,  578. 

Massey,  Rev.  Edmund,  variolation 
and  high  treason,  23;  sermon 
against  variolation,  28. 

Massey,  Isaac,  Maitland's  assur- 
ance, 18 ;  how  variolation  was 
promoted,  22 ;  mortality  of 
smallpox,  23 ;  challenge  to  the 
variolators,  23 ;  no  comparison 
between  variolation  as  prac- 
tised and  smallpox,  31  ;  con- 
cealments of  the  variolators, 
33. 

Master  of  the  Rolls,  law  and  human 
nature,  592. 

Mather,  Cotton,  introduces  vario- 
lation, 2,  3,  7,  29,  56-57,  371  ; 
fabulous  relation  to  Lady  M. 
W.  Montagu,  7,  10. 

Mathews,  Dr.,  denounces  variola- 
tion, 71,  232. 

May,  Henry,  preserving  vaccina- 
tion from  reproach,  67. 

Mayerne,  Sir  Theodore,  199. 

Maunsell,  Dr.,  usefulness  of  the 
spurious  cowpox  dodge,  278. 

Mead,  Dr.,  Newgate  experiment, 
16 ;  revived  variolation,  36  ; 
experience  of  variolation,  39  ; 
"  it  is  more  material  into  what 
kind  of  body  smallpox  is  in- 
fused than  out  of  what  it  is 
taken,"  516 ;  slight  and  severe 
smallpox,  521. 

Measles,  inoculated,  359;  in  Ice- 
land, 422;  Newcastle,  428-430; 
Glasgow,  444-445 ;  England 
and  Wales,  505-506. 

Mellor,  Mr.  Justice,  551. 

Merret,  Joseph,  horsegrease  cow- 
poxed,  99,  104. 

Merriman,  Mr.,  290. 

Mexico,  terrible  tale,  511. 


INDEX. 


617 


Mexico  and  Peru  vaccinated,  321, 

322,  401-403. 
Micawber,  471. 
Milan  horsegrease,  264. 
Mildmay,  Sir  Henry,  194. 
Mill,  J.  Stuart,  510. 
Millet,  Mr.,  erysipelatous  colt,  112. 
Milner,  R.  A.,  590. 
Mitford,  Miss,  lost  faith  in  vacci- 
nation, 479. 

Monro,  Dr.  Alexander,  variolation 
and  smallpox  in  Scotland,  49- 
50 ;  smallpox  an  infantile 
malady,  242. 

Montagu,  Lady  Mary  Wortley, 
fabulous  statement  as  to  Cotton 
Mather,  7 ;  visits  Turkey,  8 ; 
description  of  variolation  as 
practised  there,  9,  20 ;  has  her 
son  "engrafted,"  10;  and  her 
daughter  in  London,  12 ;  Mait- 
land's  account  of  transaction, 
13-14 ;  opinion  of  English 
quackery,  21,  381 ;  epitaph  in 
Lichfield  Cathedral,  51-52; 
"immortality,  "74. 
Montagu,  Lord  Robert,  reckless 
advocacy  of  vaccination,  533- 
535 ;  money  wanted  to  work 
the  mill,  537 ;  absurd  adjura- 
tion, 539;  evil  Act  of  1867, 
548 ;  member  of  House  of 
Common's'  committee,  1871, 
553. 

Montagu,  Wortley,  ambassador  to 
Turkey,  8 ;  letters  from  wife, 
10,  21. 

Monteggio,  523. 

Monteith,  Dr.,  Newcastle  Dispen- 
sary, 424-430. 

Moore,  James,  Spain  preserved 
from  variolation,  62 ;  meetings 
of  vaccinists  in  Salisbury 
Square,  228  ;  Walker  and  the 
Duke,  228;  Walker  char- 
acterised, 331  ;  vaccination  in 
Ceylon,  393 ;  Balmis'  vaccine 
girdle  round  the  world,  401 ; 
vaccination  in  Germany,  406  ; 
smallpox  and  vaccination  in 
Sweden,  412-413;  appointed 
Director  of  National  Vaccine 
41 


Establishment,  455,  456,  459  ; 
insolence  toward  Brown  of 
Musselburgh,  457. 

Moore,  Sir  John,  455. 

Moore,  Parson,  derivation  of  cow- 
pox  from  horsegrease,  155. 

Morley,  John,  Catharine's  variola- 
tion, 62. 

Morris,  Edward,  mischief?  of  vario- 
lation, 246-247;  moves  that 
Jenner  have  £20,000,  247-248. 

Morris,  William,  horsegrease  indis- 
tinguishable from  cowpox,  156. 

Morris,  William,  measles  in  Iceland, 
422. 

Mortality,  Total,  unaffected  by 
smallpox,  438,  439,  546,  560. 

Mortality,  Vicarious,  in  Glasgow, 
443-446 ;  Dr.  Farr's  illustra- 
tion, 447-448,  451 ;  Dr.  Wool- 
combe's,  449;  Dr.  Gregory's, 
505-506  ;  Malthus's,  569,  570. 

Moseley,  Dr., 72, 187,  361;  "vacci- 
nation gratis,"  236:  Edinburgh 
Review,  290 ;  exasperating  and 
matter  of  fact,  292;  contro- 
versy with  Rev.  Rowland  Hill, 
295 ;  character,  296. 

Mount  Temple,  Lady,-  547. 

Mudie,  Dr.  P.,  chickenpox  must 
be  smallpox,  367. 

Munk,  Dr.,  character  of  Moseley, 
296-297. 

Naples,  vaccination,  396. 

Napoleon  enforced  vaccination, 
399;  anecdote  about  Jenner, 
400. 

Nash  of  Shaftesbury  inoculates  with 
cowpox,  94,  204. 

National  Anti- Compulsory  Vac- 
cination League,  543,  550,  578- 
579 ;  Reporter,  578. 

National  HealthSociety's  statistical 
fraud,  209. 

National  Vaccine  Establishment 
founded,  1808,  255,  453;  for 
investigation,  257-258,  454 ; 
equine  virus  received  from 
Jenner,  268;  Cobbett's  judg- 
ment, 307;  indifference  to 
Jenner's  advice,  340 ;  Jenner's 


618 


INDEX. 


interest,  350;  reports,  1 808- 
1840,  453-470;  constitution, 
455;  Moore  appointed  director, 
456 ;  investigation  unattempted 
457  ;  lax  management,  458  ; 
funds  looted,  459 ;  Board  a 
gossipping  place,  460  ;  Joseph 
Hume  comes  to  judgment, 
460  ;  Parliamentary  report  on 
extravagance,  1833,  461  ;  re- 
ports, 1841-50,  470-477;  the 
initial  error  of  State  vaccina- 
tion, 584. 

Nature  not  to  be  swindled,  595. 

Navy,  introduction  of  vaccination, 
398  ;  medal  to  Jenner,  398. 

Negroes,  variolated,  56 ;  curiosity 
of  Waterhouse  as  to  vaccina- 
tion, 379. 

Neighbour,  James,  evidence  House 
of  Commons' committee,  1871, 
568. 

Nelmes,  Sarah,  Jenner's  first  vac- 
cinifer,  101,  116,  120. 

Nettleton,  Dr.  Thomas,  Halifax 
smallpox,  27 ;  practice  as 
variolator,  30. 

Newbury,  variolation  restricted  to 
residents,  44. 

Newcastle  Smallpox,  424-430. 

New  England,  absence  of  smallpox 
in  1787,  84,  374. 

Newman,  Prof.  F.  W.,  abridge- 
ment of  Silj  estrom,41 8 ;  account 
of  opposition  to  vaccination, 
544-546. 

Newgate,  London,  variolation  of 
six  felons,  15;  and  Christ's 
Hospital,  524. 

Nichols,  Simon,  produces  cowpox 
from  horsegrease,  107. 

Nichols,  Dr.  T.  L.,  590. 

Noailles,  the  Countess  De,  account 
of  connection  with  anti-vac- 
cination movement,  546-548 ; 
liberal  support  of  London 
Society,  580. 

Nonconformists  and  church-rates, 
542. 

Northampton  clear  of  smallpox  for 
years,  83;  Dr.  Pearce  holds 
debate  on  vaccination,  541  ; 


speech  of  Charles  Gilpin,  542 ; 
dislike  of  vaccination,  555. 

Norwich  Smallpox  Epidemic,  181 9, 
431-439  ;  rarity  of  smallpox, 
433  ;  introduction  of  vaccina- 
tion, 432-433;  bribery  prac- 
tised, 434 ;  vulgar  treatment 
of  smallpox,  437  ;  variolation 
disused,  1815,  and  no  small- 
pox, 463. 

Nottingham  Vaccine  Institution, 
225. 

Nurses  in  smallpox  hospitals  never 
catch  smallpox,  497. 

Oaths,  compulsory,  593. 
Orleans,  Duke  of,  children  vario- 
lated, 60. 

Paget,  Hon.  Arthur,  Vienna,  384. 

Paine  and  Walker,  330. 

Paisley,  vaccination  introduced, 
151. 

Pakington,  Sir  John,  confessed 
ignorance,  482-483. 

Pall  Mall  Gazette,  smallpox  local- 
ised in  London,  209. 

Palmerston,  Lord,  483. 

Paris,  vaccination  found  useless  in 
1825,  520;  Anti- Vaccination 
Congress,  1880,  581. 

Parry,  Dr.  C.  H.,  Letter  from 
Jenner  on  Tartar  Emetic,  348. 

Paytherus,  T.,  102,  147. 

Patent,  Jenner  could  not  have 
obtained  one,  207,  260,  278. 

Paterson,  Dr.,  Montrose,  praise  of 
Dr.  Pearson,  162. 

Pearce,  Dr.  Charles  T.,  541-542; 
evidence  House  of  Commons' 
committee,  1871,  554. 

Pearce,  Thomas,  case  of  horse- 
grease,  115. 

Pearson,  Dr.  George,  associates 
himself  with  Jenner,  134 ; 
publishes  Inquiry,  136 ;  Jen- 
ner's note  thereon,  153 ;  dis- 
covers prevalence  of  faith  in 
cowpox,  137-139;  subjects 
London  dairymen  to  variolous 
test,  140 ;  denies  equine  origin 
of  cowpox,  142;  conjectures 


INDEX. 


619 


that  inoculation  is  applicable 
to  other  diseases,  143-144; 
discovers  cowpox  in  London, 
uses  and  distributes  it,  and 
lectures,  146-147 ;  sets  aside 
Jenner's  doctrine,  153,  158, 
472,  512 ;  considered  horse- 
grease  like  to  damn  the  whole 
thing,  158,  260,  336,  375; 
founds  Vaccine  Pock  Institu- 
tion, 1799,  159,  251 ;  refusal 
of  Jenner's  assistance,  160-161; 
success  of  Institution,  168 ; 
application  from  French  Con- 
sulate, 168  ;  public  reception 
of  cowpox,  170;  Pearson  heard 
with  impatience  by  House  of 
Commons'  committee,  193 ; 
publishes  Examination,  197  ; 
his  o  w  n  andWood  ville's  claims, 
197;  that  he  corrected  Jenner's 
assertions,  198 ;  developed 
practice,  198;  established  Vac- 
cine Pock  Institution,  199  ; 
impossibility  of  Jenner  making 
a  secret  of  vaccination,  199  ; 
his  pecuniary  claims  absurd, 
199 ;  what  he  did  and  for  what 
he  might  have  been  rewarded, 
199-200 ;  merits  of  Examina- 
tion, 200 ;  Pearson  failed  to 
recognise  strength  of  his  own 
j  position  and  Jenner's  impos- 

ture, 201-203;  Pearson  and 
Woodville  really  introduced 
cowpox  to  Europe  and  America, 
151,  203,  260-261,  352,  360, 
375,  404;  Jesty  invited  to 
London,  204-205;  offers  reward 
for  smallpox  after  cowpox, 
258 ;  held  revaccination  im- 
possible, 205,  259,  303;  esti- 
mate of  Jenner,  225  ;  Pearson 
as  seen  by  De  Carro  through 
Jenner,  265,  266. 

Pease,  Sir  Joseph,  advocates  limi- 
tation of  penalties,  577. 

Peel,  Sir  Robert,  adverse  to  com- 
pulsion, 476,  480,  485. 

Pegge,  Sir  Christopher,  176. 

Peking,  vaccination  in,  394.    [142. 

Pennington,  Sir  Isaac,  horsegrease, 


Pepys,  Sir  Lucas,  255. 

Perceval,  Mr.,  72 ;  moves  that 
Jenner  have  £10,000,  243,  247. 

Percival,  Dr.,  Manchester,  letter 
to  Jenner,  133. 

Persia,  variolation  and  vaccina- 
tion, 394. 

Peru  and  Mexico,  321,  322,401-403. 

Petition,  Jenner's,  184;  discussed, 
185-186. 

Peto,  Sir  Morton,  529. 

Petty,  Lord  Henry,  brings  Jenner's 
case  before  House  of  Commons, 
231-232,  234,  243,  245,  253, 
257,  454. 

Philadelphia,  variolation,  38;  letter 
from  Jenner,  341-342;  cowpox 
accounted  indelicate,  374. 

Phillips,  Sir  Richard,  son  vacci- 
nated by  Jenner  takes  small- 
pox, 312. 

Phipps,  James,  first  person  cow- 
poxed  by  Jenner,  101,  116, 
119,  120. 

Physicians,  London,  College  of, 
approve  of  variolation,  43; 
report  on  vaccination,  235 ; 
decline  to  receive  Jenner  with- 
out examination,  361. 

Pickering,  John,  starts  Anti-  Vacci- 
nator,  574 ;  exposes  fraudulent 
statistics  in  Leeds,  575. 

Pitman,  Henry,  labours  and  suffer- 
ing in  opposition  to  vaccina- 
tion, 544,  545,  574. 

Pitt,  William,  184,  215,  231. 

Plague  stayed  by  vaccination,  359. 

Playfair,  Sir  Lyon,  546,  553,  578, 
583. 

Plett,  Holstein,  inoculated  with 
cowpox,  1791,  94. 

Pock-Marked  Faces,  468;  disap- 
pearance avouched  by  National 
Vaccine  Establishment,  469- 
470. 

Poor  Law  Authorities,  vaccination* 
committed  to,  471. 

Post  Office  conveyed  correspond- 
ence of  Royal  Jennerian  Society 
gratis,  275. 

Potato  introduced,  88-89;  de- 
nounced by  Cobbett,  316,  317. 


620 


INDEX. 


Pouschin,  63. 

Prague  Hospital,  520,  521. 

Priessnitz,  treatment  of  smallpox, 
508,  509. 

Prig,  Betsy,  240. 

Prince,  Rev.  T.,  Boston  smallpox, 
1752,  373. 

Procter,  Edmund,  590. 

Prussia,  vaccination  introduced, 
405;  re  vaccination  proved  use- 
less in  army,  520. 

Pulteney,  Dr.,  cowpox,  131,  136, 
138. 

Putnam,  Dr.,  Boston,  uses  small- 
pox nowpox,  76. 

Pylarini,  1,  7,  10. 

Quakers  and  vaccination,  228 ; 
their  Institution  and  pox  pre- 
ferred, 457-458 ;  church-rates, 
560 ;  oaths,  593. 

Ramsay,  Dean,  51. 

Ranby,  Sergeant,  variolator,  41, 59. 

Ratcliffe,  Dr.,  199. 

Red  gum  deadens  vaccine  virus, 
340. 

Redesdale,  Lord,  572. 

Rees's  Cyclopaedia,  163. 

Rendall,  Mrs.,  cowpoxer,  94. 

Rennie,  Dr.,  smallpox  and  vacci- 
nation in  Peking,  394. 

Revaccination  treated  as  impossi- 
ble, 159;  Dr.  Pearson's  opinion, 
198,  259,  303 ;  recommended, 
1844,  473 ;  pronounced  super- 
fluous by  National  Vaccine 
Establishment,  1851,  473 ; 
proved  useless  in  armies  of 
Prussia  and  Wurtemburg,  520. 

Reynolds's  System  of  Medicine,  66. 

Rhazes,  521. 

Richardson,  Dr.  B.  W.,  547. 

Ricord,  M.,  in  vaccination  of  syph- 
ilis, 310. 

Riddiford,  Abraham,  smallpox 
after  horsegrease,  115. 

Rigby,  Miss,  death  .from  variola- 
tion,  34. 

Rigby,  Mr.,  surgeon,  Norwich,  434. 

Ring,  John,  Jenner's  henchman 
and  bully,  172;  gets  up  medi- 


cal testimony,  172,  174;  his 
publications,  173 ;  Jenner  in 
Portman  Square,  176;  witness 
for  Jenner,  190;  recommended 
for  Chief  Vaccinator  and  result, 
255,  455;  Birch  on  his  failures, 
280 ;  attack  on  Edinburgh 
Review,  290,  303 ;  libels 
Walker,  324-330;  brutality  to 
Goldson,  351  ;  compliments 
Dr.  Waterhouse,  378;  "wit," 
379 ;  ruthless  and  untruthful, 
578. 

Ringwood,  smallpox  after  vaccina- 
tion, 252,  308,  313. 

Robinson,  Dr.  Bryan,  34. 

Robinson,  Enoch,  Can  Dise  se 
protect  Health  ?  582. 

Roby,  Dr.,  Boston,  5. 

Rochdale  smallpox,  30. 

Rodway,  William,  smallpox  ..fter 
cowpox,  106. 

Rolph,  Mr.,  surgeon,  common 
Gloucestershire  faith  in  cow- 
pox,  137. 

Rome,  variolation  introduced,  62. 

Rose,  George,  moves  vote  for  Na- 
tional Vaccine  Establishment, 
252,  254,  255,  308. 

Rous,  Lord,  192. 

Rowan,  Miss  Frederica,  418. 

Rowlandson's  caricatures,  298. 

Rowley,  Dr.  William,  187,  290, 
361 ;  opponent  of  vaccina'tion, 
297  ;  evidence  of  subsequent 
smallpox  and  injuries,  298 ; 
delirium  of  vaccinators,  299 ; 
his  character,  299. 

Royal  Society,  1,  2,  7,  30,  37. 

Royal  Jennerian  Society,  218-229  ; 
admit  smallpox  after  cowpox, 
293 ;  Cobbett's  remarks,  305, 
307,  312 ;  wreck  and  salvage, 
322 ;  annexed  by  London  Vac- 
cine Institution,  323 ;  union 
disliked  by  Jenner  and  Ring, 
and  denounced,  324,  326,  329; 
Society  wrecked  by  Jenner's 
jealousy  and  intrigue,  453, 455, 
456. 

Ruskin  and  Cobbett,  304. 

Russia,  vaccination  introduced  and 


INDEX. 


621 


prescribed,  406 ;  tolerated  re- 
sistance, 407. 

Russian  Emperor  Alexander  cau- 
tioned by  Jenner  against 
Walker,  329;  an  unprofitable 
interview,  362. 

Sacco,  Dr.,  Milan,  useshorsegrease, 
264,  267,  336,  512,  and  sup- 
plies De  Carro  of  Vienna,  265, 
405 ;  his  cowpox  transmitted 
through  De  Carro  to  India, 
385 ;  exploits  as  vaccinator, 
403-404,  406. 

Salvani,  vaccine  missionary,  401. 

Salivation,  519. 

Sanitation,  newfaith,  448,  474, 477. 

Sancho,  William,  258. 

Sangrado,  571. 

Scarlet  fever  inoculated,  359 ;  in 
Newcastle,  428,  430;  increased 
and  intensified  since  vaccina- 
tion, 448 ;  in  England  and 
Wales,  1838-40,  505,  506. 

Scheuchzer,  Dr.,  variolation,  1721- 
28,  32. 

Schleisner,  Dr.,  Icelandic  smallpox, 
420-421. 

Schultz,  Dr.,  62. 

Sclater- Booth,  G.,  576. 

Scotland,  smallpox  and  variolation 
in  18th  century,  50;  smallpox 
an  infantile  disorder,  51  ; 
smallpox  among  vaccinated, 
1818-19,  366;  statistics  of 
smallpox,  1859  to  1872,  534; 
Compulsory  Act,  1863,  563. 

Scott,  Dr.  Helenus,  385,  388,  392. 

Scott,  Dr.  John,  591. 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  371. 

Scrofula  excited  by  variolation, 
166,  and  vaccination,  515. 

Scurvy,  prevalence  in  18th  century, 
87 ;  influence  on  smallpox, 
521. 

Seaford,  Sussex,  83. 

Seaton,  Dr.  E.  C.,  Handbook  of 
Vaccination,  smallpox  cowpox, 
75 ;  mendacious  letter,  485- 
497  ;  ruling  spirit  of  Epidemi- 
ological  Society,  486;  intrigues 
for  place  and  power,  495 ; 


evidence  House  of  Commons' 
committee,  1871,  568-570; 
ruthless,  untruthful,  mercen- 
ary, 578. 

Sebright,  Sir  John,  247.  [401. 

Seville,  fatalities  from  vaccination, 

Sewell,  Mr.,  attempts  to  produce 
cowpox  from  horsegrease,  335. 

Sewell's  Point,  Boston,  58. 

Shaftesbury,  Lord,  neglected  vacci- 
nation, 481 ;  improved  houses 
might  exterminate  smallpox, 
482. 

Sherborne,  Lord,  183,  184,  185. 

Shrapnell,  Mr.,  171,  269. 

Sievier,  statue  of  Jenner,  363. 

Siljestrb'm,  P.  A.,  smallpox  in 
Sweden,  417-419. 

Simmons,  Mr.,  Manchester, experi- 
ments with  horsegrease,  133, 
155. 

Simon,  John,  recitation  of  Jennerian 
legend,  103;  Jenner's  master- 
piece, 124,  142,  155,  156,  158, 
333 ;  Papers  on  History  and 
Practice  of  Vaccination,  510- 
519  ;  terrible  tales,  511 ;  Lon- 
don smallpox,  511-512;  cowpox 
derived  from  smallpox  and 
infallible  prophylaxy  thereof, 
512-513,  525  ;  misstatement  of 
Jenner's  prescription,  513,525; 
all  vaccination  assumed  effec- 
tive, 514 ;  drawbacks  unfairly 
stated,  515 ;  scrofula,  515 ; 
admitted  dangers,  515  ;  quali- 
ties of  virus  unknown,  516 ; 
syphilis,  516 ;  difficulties  of 
vaccination,  516  ;  sickly  chil- 
dren, 517  ;  selection  of  virus, 
517 ;  an  ideal  rarely  realised, 
518 ;  questions  addressed  to 
500  medical  men,  518;  answers 
predetermined,  519;  value  and 
characteristics,  524-525  ;\  evi- 
dence House  of  Commons' 
committee,  1871,  557;  un- 
scrupulous character,  558 ; 
ruthless,  untruthful,  mercen- 
ary, 578. 

Simonds,  Professor  J.  B.,  cowpox 
a  questionable  disease,  272. 


622 


INDEX. 


Simpson,  James,  189. 

Sims,  Dr.,  187,  226,  331. 

Skey,  Dr.,  189, 

Sloane,  Sir  Hans,  15,  23;  Newgate 
experiment,  17  ;  cautious 
counsels,  17. 

Smallpox  an  infantile  disease  in 
Scotland,  51,  242,  445;  epi- 
demic, 1818-19,  367;  in  China, 
394;  in  Sweden,  409-410;  in 
Norwich,  436 ;  in  Glasgow, 
440;  disease  of  young  and 
poor,  26,  437,  440,  445,  470. 

An  alternative  of  other  dis- 
eases, in  Sweden,  415-417  ;  in 
Newcastle,  428 ;  in  Glasgow, 
439-444  ;  the  fact  enforced  by 
Dr.  Farr,  447-451;  by  John 
Gibbs,  504-506;  by  Professor 
F.  W.  Newman,  546 ;  by  Dr. 
Bakewell,  560;  by  Malthus, 
570  ;  the  disease  to  be  studied 
with  its  congeners,  511 ;  epi- 
demic of  1871,  570-571. 

In  London,  1701-1722, 24-25; 
18th  century,  77-87  ;  1791  to 
1820,  346;  development  of 
fabulous  salvation,  466-468; 
decline  prior  to  vaccination, 
86,  211,  466-467. 

In  England  and  Wales,  con- 
jectural mortality,  25.  194, 
208-209,  345 ;  case  according 
to  John  Gibbs,  505,  507  ; 
fabulous  salvation,  526-528. 

In  Boston,  3-6,  371-373; 
Chester,  69  ;  China,  394  ; 
Edinburgh,49-51, 366;  Geneva, 
61-62;  Glasgow,  439-445;  New- 
castle, 424-430;  New  England, 
1787,  84,  374;  Norwich,  432- 
438  ;  Sweden,  408-419. 

Declining  prior  to  introduc- 
tion of  vaccination  in  London, 
86,  222-225,  466-467,  487;  over 
Europe,    368,   431,   446,    468, 
476,    514;    in    Vienna,    369; 
'  Sweden,  410,  414-416  ;  Italy, 
404;  Denmark,  419;  Glasgow, 
446 ;  Dr.  Farr's  evidence,  86, 
211,  466-467. 
Exaggerated     horrors,     76, 


430,  570  ;  Massey's  evidence, 
23 ;  Wagstaffe's,  24  ;  Monro's, 
50;  Haygarth's,  69;  Birch's, 
85;  multitudes  never  had 
smallpox,  65 ;  unknown  for 
years  in  some  parts  of  England , 
83;  rarity  in  Norwich,  433; 
disease  ever  had  some  limit, 
210,  431  ;  wild  assertions  of 
House  of  Commons' committee, 
212;  terrible  tale  of  Mexico, 
511. 

Rate  of  mortality  prior  to 
vaccination  in  Boston,  3,  372 ; 
Christ's  Hospital,  23,  524; 
London,  24-25,  26,  31,  79-80, 
373;  Halifax,  Rochdale,  Leeds, 
30;  Edinburgh,  50;  London 
Smallpox  Hospital,  66 ;  New- 
castle, 427;  Glasgow,  440; 
according  to  Dr.  Buchan,  66, 
and  Edinburgh  Review,  66. 

Increased  by  variolation, 
69,  72,  236,  246,  390,  426,  431, 
462-464. 

Intensified  by  maltreatment, 
84,  427,  437,  521;  by  food, 
87,  316,  521. 

Sporadic  character,  209, 522, 
568. 

Origin  in  horse  according  to 
Jenner,  97,  359,  513. 

Smallpox  cowpox  introduced,  75 ; 
connection  with  cowpox  denied 
273  ;  cows  contract  smallpox 
from  milkers,  378-379;  Ceely 
and  Badcock,  75,  272,  472, 
514,  528 ;  unqualified  con- 
fidence of  Simon,  512-513,  and 
Robert  Lowe,  528. 

Smith,  Dr.  Southwood,  absolute 
faith  in  sanitation,  478,  556. 

Smith,  William,  cowpox  after  cow- 
pox,  106. 

Smith,  William,  exaltation  of 
Jenner,  247. 

Spain,  escaped  variolation,  62 ; 
vaccination  introduced,  400- 
401. 

Spencer,  Earl,  397. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  increased  vacci- 
nation and  smallpox,  541. 


INDEX. 


623 


Squirrel,  Dr.,  opponent  of  vacci- 
nation, 290,  301,  361. 

Stanhope,  Earl,  73. 

Staunton,  Sir  George,  394. 

Steigertahl,  Dr.,  17. 

Stephens,  Joanna,  remedies  for 
stone,  37. 

Stepney,  26,  27. 

Stevens,  Dr.,  never  saw  injury 
from  vaccination,  566. 

Stiles,  Henry,  smallpox  after  cow- 
pox,  130. 

Stockholm,  417-418. 

Strickland,  Sir  George,  opposes 
compulsion,  483,  485. 

St.  Andrews,  Jenner's  purchase  of 
degree,  97;  Ring's  sneer  at 
same,  329,  330. 

St.  Christophers,  38. 

St.  Pancras  guardians,  587. 

Stuart,  Lady  Louisa,  fiction  as  to 
introduction  of  variolation,  13. 

Sunderland,  Earl  of,  son  variolated 
and  killed,  34. 

Suttons,  eminent  variolators,  45, 
179,  188  ;  method  of  practice. 
46. 

Sweden,  variolation  introduced, 
62,  but  little  practised,  408 ; 
Jenner's  pride  in,  345,  392 ; 
sorely  afflicted  with  smallpox, 
408  ;  influence  of  famine,  409; 
children  chief  sufferers,  409 ; 
disease  aggravated  by  bad 
treatment,  410 ;  steadily  de- 
clining when  vaccination  was 
introduced,  410-411 ;  vaccina- 
tion made  obligatory,  1816, 
411 ;  means  of  livelihood  for 
clergy,  411 ;  asserted  exter- 
mination of  smallpox,  413-414; 
Siljestroin's  evidence,  417-419. 

Swarmery,  291. 

Swift's  city  shower,  82. 

Swinepox,  98,  99,  262,  401. 

Sydenham,  448,  521. 

Syphilis,  invaccination  foreseen  by 
Massey,  27,  and  Cobbett,  309 ; 
declared  impossible,  68,  by 
Simon,  516,  by  H.  A.  Bruce, 
530,  and  by  Sir  Dominic  Cor- 
rigau,  561 ;  Ricord's  warning, 


Brudenell  Carter's  experience, 
and  Sir  Thomas  Watson's 
ghastly  risk,  310  ;  inseparable 
from  public  vaccination,  503  ; 
Henley's  answer  to  Bruce,  531 ; 
W.  J.  Addison's  evidence,  556 ; 
dreaded  in  West  Indies,  559 ; 
Jonathan  Hutchinson's  cases, 
567,  and  proof  that  it  is  latent 
and  active  in  some  vaccinifers, 
568. 

Tanner,  Thomas,  got  cowpox  from 
horsegrease,  263. 

Tar  water,  21. 

Tarleton,  General,  glory  to  Jenner, 
246. 

Tartar  emetic,  letter  from  Hunter, 
93;  used  for  vaccine  virus,  121; 
Jenner's  last  effort,  348. 

Taupin,  failed  to  invaccinate  any 
disease,  522. 

Taylor,  David,  190. 

Taylor,  Peter  Alfred,  553,  577, 580; 
reply  to  Dr.  W.  B.  Carpenter, 
588. 

Tea  introduced,  89 ;  denounced  by 
Cobbett,  316. 

Tebb,  William,  580,  587,  596. 

Temple,  Sir  Richard,  smallpox  and 
vaccination  in  India,  391. 

Terry,  Dr.,  15. 

Thiele,  Dr.,  1836,  produces  small- 
pox cowpox,  512. 

Thomson,  Dr.,  Boston,  5. 

Thomson,  Dr.  John,  smallpox 
epidemic  in  Scotland,  1818-19, 
366 ;  depressing  experience 
with  vaccination,  366  -  368  ; 
receives  equine  virus  from 
Jenner,  368 ;  absence  of  epi- 
demic smallpox  when  vaccina- 
tion was  introduced,  369. 

Thornton,  Dr.,  190. 

Thorpe,  Rev.  R.  A.,  448. 

Thurlow,  William,  590. 

Timoni,  Emanuel,  1,  2,  7,  10. 

Tort  worth,  eight  paupers  cow- 
poxed,  107. 

Travers,  Benjamin,  217,  218,  219. 

Trinidad,  vaccination  in,  559. 

Tronchin,  Dr.,  variolator,  60. 


624 


INDEX. 


Trotter,  Dr.,  smallpox  in  navy, 
397  ;  medal  for  Jenner,  398. 

Turgot,  59. 

Turkey,  variolation,  1,  9,  11  ; 
malignity  of  smallpox,  12. 

Turner,  Mr.,  experiments  with 
horsegrease,  335. 

Turton,  Sir  Thomas,  250-251,  252. 

Underwood,  Dr.,  383. 
United  States,  vaccination  intro- 
duced, 370-382. 
Urquhart,  William,  34. 

Vaccination,  origin  of  term,  229 ; 
vaccinium  and  vacciolation, 
220,  222,  229. 

Precipitate  approval  of  Lon- 
don physicians,  70,  173 ;  Dr. 
Pearson's  work,  151,  170; 
acceptance  by  King  and  Court, 
171 ;  the  heir  of  variolation, 
174, 191, 249, 370, 395;  received 
with  acclamation,  274,  405 ; 
offered  gratis,  236,  326-327; 
means  by  which  promoted, 
275 ;  character  of  furore,  278, 
299,  305;  public  goaded  to 
belief,286;  fury  of  controversy, 
290,  305  ;  swarmery,  291 ; 
favoured  by  decline  and  ab- 
sence of  smallpox,  222-225, 
369,  476,  487,  514,  562. 

Tables  of  comparison  and 
advantage,  214,  377. 

Disrepute  in  and  around 
London  (1805)  281,  293;  abate- 
ment of  faith  under  failure 
(1808)  308  -  309,  317,  453  ; 
(1822-23)  364-365,  426;  (1825 
and  1838)  520;  Sir  Henry 
Holland's  testimony  (1839) 
490;  faith  never  so  low  as 
prior  to  enforcement  of  prac- 
tice, 477-479;  revival  of  delu- 
sion, 309,  426,  474-475. 

Reduction  of  claim  to  making 
smallpox  milder,  238,  288,  313, 
321,  338,  566 ;  security  exactly 
equal  to  variolation,  339,  355. 

Opinion  that  prophylaxy 
wore  out,  Goldson,  284  ; 


Brown,  288;  contested  in  Edin- 
burgh Review,  302;  by  Thom- 
son, 368;  asserted  by  Lord 
Ellenborough,  353;  denied  by 
Jenner,  354 ;  condemned  by 
National  Vaccine  Establish- 
ment (1851),  473. 

Failure  from  reports  of 
National  Vaccine  Establish- 
ment, 464-466. 

Easy  art  practiced  by  ladies 
and  gentlemen,  276,  280,  305, 
314,  489;  Walker's  opinion, 
324;  practice  in  Sweden,  411- 
413;  becomes  difficult,  343; 
Simon's  ideal  conditions  of 
safety  and  success,  516-518. 

In  Spanish  America,  401- 
403;  Austria,  404,  506;  Ba- 
varia, 596;  Ceylon,  392-393; 
China,  393-395;  Denmark,  419; 
Dublin,  242-243;  Edinburgh, 
241-242;  Finland,  419;  France, 
169,  398;  Glasgow,  441-446; 
Iceland,  420;  India,  383-393; 
Ireland,  561 ;  North  Italy,  403- 
404 ;  Newcastle,  426;  Norwich, 
432-434;  Russia,  406;  Scotland, 
151,  534,  563;  Spain,  400; 
United  Kingdom  (1853),  481- 
483;  United  States,  370-382; 
Vienna,  404. 

Adopted  and  enforced  by 
State  in  England :  Cobbett  on 
projected  compulsion  (1803), 
305-307,  (1808),  310-311;  estab- 
lished and  endowed  (1808), 
250-258 ;  paid  for  out  of  poor 
rate  (1840),  470 ;  enforced 
(1853),  480-485  vaccination 
office  projected,  493-494,  496, 
501,  with  compulsory  revac- 
cination  (1855),  496;  compul- 
sion intensified  (1861),  526; 
repeated  penalties  enacted 
(1867),  538,  540-541,  550;  re- 
ported against  by  House  of 
Commons'  committee  (1871), 
571 ;  House  of  Commons  con- 
curs, 572;  rejection  by  House 
of  Lords  and  submission  of 
Commons,  572-573 ;  erratic  and 


INDEX. 


625 


arbitrary  administration  of  the 
law,  575-576;  Evesham  letter 
(1876),  576;  subsequent  at- 
tempts to  modify  law,  577. 

Law  detested  by  the  poor, 
479 ;  why  abhorred,  501 ;  cruel 
and  despicable  persecution, 
590-592 ;  hated  in  Lancashire; 
591. 

Vaccination  as  a  trade,  470, 
479.  480,  485,  488-489,  493, 
496,  518,  519,  533,  536,  537, 
580 ;  public  practice  worth 
£100,000  a  year,  583. 

Vaccination  Inquirer,  580. 

Vaccination  Tracts,  581. 

Vaccine  girdle  round  theworld,  401. 

Vaccine  Pock  Institution  founded, 
1799,  159,  251  ;  Jesty's  visit, 
205  ;  reward  offered  for  small- 
pox after  cowpox,  258  ;  con- 
sequently shut  up,  259. 

Vaccine  roses,  332. 

Vaccine  Scourge,  325. 

Vaccinoff,  a  Moscow  foundling,  406. 

Vantandillo,  Sophia,  prosecution, 
462. 

Variolation  practised  in  Tur- 
key, 1,  9,  11  ;  introduced  to 
Boston,  2-7  ;  to  England,  12- 
14  ;  experiment  in  Newgate, 
15-17;  on  charity  children,  17; 
children  of  Prince  of  Wales, 
18;  Maitland's  operations,  19- 
20,  easy  acceptance  of  practice, 
22,  28  ;  opposition  of  Masseys, 
23-28,  31-34;  Dr.  Nettleton's 
practice,  30;  Jurin's  precau- 
tions, 30-31  ;  Dr.  Scheuch- 
zer's  tabulation  of  cases,  32 ; 
Dr.  Wagstaffe's  observations, 
33  ;  disasters,  34  ;  the  position 
(1728),  35-36. 

Revival  of  practice  under 
Dr.  Mead  (1748),  36-37,  39- 
40 ;  in  Smallpox  Hospital,  Cold 
Bath  Fields,  40 ;  sermon  of 
Bishop  Maddox,  40 ;  theo- 
logical opposition,  42 ;  approval 
of  London  College  of  Physi- 
cians (1754),  43  ;  etiquette  of 
practice,  44 ;  Mrs.  Chapman's 
42 


procedure,  44 ;  Jenner's  ac- 
count of  preparatory  regimen, 
45  ;  Buttons'  methods,  45-47  ; 
Dr.  Dimsdale's,  47-49 ;  Society 
for  General  Inoculation  (1775), 
49  ;  extent  of  variolation,  52  ; 
Dr.  Buchan's  evidence,  53-55  ; 
practice  in  New  England,  56- 
59 ;  France,  59-61 ;  Geneva; 
61-62;  Empress  Catharine,  62- 
65;  fatalities,  66-69;  cleared 
the  way  for  vaccination,  70 ;. 
Dr.  Lettsom  on  dangers,  71 ; 
Wilberforce  urgent  for  sup- 
pression, 71  ;  denounced  by 
Dr.  Mathews,  71  ;  by  Sturges 
Bourne,  72,  246  ;  by  Jenner, 
72;  by  Lord  Henry  Petty, 
246 ;  Lord  Boringdon's  bill, 
73 ;  successful  prosecution  for 
exposure  (1815),  73,  462;  Dr. 
Epps  (1831),  74;  prohibited 
by  Act  of  Parliament  (1840), 
74,  470,  464;  Dr.  Gregory's 
regret,  74 ;  revived  by  Ceely 
and  Badcock  (1839-40),  75-76. 

Practised  in  China,  16,  394, 
India,  392,  Italy,  62,  Persia, 
394,  Scots  Highlands,  29, 
Wales,  29. 

Introduced  to  Barbados,  38; 
Boston,  2,  7,  11,  57-59,  371- 
374,  377 ;  Florence,  62 ;  France, 
59;  Geneva,  61;  Germany,  62; 
Holland,  62;  Ireland,  474: 
Newbury,  44 ;  New  England, 
56 ;  Newcastle,  445  ;  Norwich, 
435,  437;  Paris,  60;  Phila- 
delphia, 38  ;  Rome,  62 ;  Rus- 
sia, 62-65;  St.  Christophers, 
38  ;  Scotland,  50  ;  Spain,  62  ; 
Sweden,  62,  408. 

Practised  from  arm  to  arm, 
63,  120,  193 ;  Jenner  asserts 
its  happy  effects,  123 ;  un- 
certainty of  operation,  105, 
108,  166,  212;  cannot  affect 
smallpox,  Hamernik,  522 ; 
effects  governed  by  mode  and 
conditions,  150. 

A  pest  and  a  terror,  71,  72, 
213 ;  an  excitant  of  scrofula, 


626 


INDEX. 


123,  166  ;  a  cause  of  smallpox, 
69,  236,  246,  390,  426,  431,  462- 
464. 

Contrasted  with  vaccination, 
214,  377^466  ;  discredited  by 
vaccination,  301,  514  ;  led  to 
acceptance  of  vaccination,  249, 
370,  395. 

Variolous  Test  after  swinepox,  98 ; 
description,  125;  worked  mar- 
vellously, 181,  212 ;  exploded 
by  variolators,  279  ;  Brown's 
evidence  of  futility,  287  ;  eva- 
ded by  Jenner  and  Vaccine 
Test  preferred,  342-343;  ap- 
plied in  Boston,  377. 

Venesection,  519,  584. 

Vere,  Aubrey  de,  566. 

Vicarious  Mortality,  Norwich,  438 ; 
law  of,  explained  by  Dr.  Farr, 
448,  Dr.  Woolcombe,  449  ;  Dr. 
Gregory,  505-506,  Malthus, 
569-570. 

Vicarious  Vaccination,  237 ;  attest- 
ed by  Rev.  Rowland  Hill,  295 ; 
in  London,  321,  324,  346,  488  ; 
in  Vienna,  369,  404  ;  in  India, 
388  ;  in  Northern  Italy,  403- 
404;  in  Russia,  407  ;  in  Ger- 
many, 408  ;  in  Sweden,  414  ; 
in  Denmark  and  Copenhagen, 
419-420  ;  in  Glasgow,  446  ;  in 
United  Kingdom,  492,  514. 

Victoria,  Queen,  revaccinated,  564. 

Vienna,  232,  369,  404 ;  vaccinated 
and  equinated  indistinguish- 
able, 405. 

Villiers,  Mr.,  592. 

Voltaire,  59,  62,  65. 

Wachsel,  J.  C.,  146,  280;  experi- 
ments with  horsegrease,  335. 

Wagstaffe,  Dr.,  Newgate  experi- 
ment, 16  ;  various  character 
of  smallpox,  24,  238  ;  dangers 
of  variolation,  33. 

Wakley,  Mr.,  74. 

Wales,  variolation  practised,  29. 

Wales,  Princess  of  (Caroline),  5 ; 
promotes  variolation,  14-15, 17. 

Wales,  Prince  of  (George  iv.),  171, 
219,  220,  221. 


Walker,  Annie,  331. 

Walker,  Dr.,  John,  birth  and  ad- 
ventures, 220 ;  Royal  Jen- 
nerian  Society,  221  ;  character 
and  habits,  222,  225;  differ- 
ences with  Jenner,  225,  226  ; 
resigns  office,  226;  London  Vac- 
cine Institution  established, 
227,  and  prospers,  453,  458, 
460  ;  interview  with  a  duke, 
228 ;  public  warned  against, 
250;  at  Surrey  Chapel,  293: 
the  great  London  vaccinator, 
322  ;  ease  of  vaccination,  324  ; 
a  Quaker  of  Paine's  pattern, 
330 ;  attacked  by  Ring,  324- 
330 ;  indifference  to  money. 
330 ;  reply  to  Moore,  331  ; 
practice  and  peculiarities,  332 ; 
death  and  character,  333 ;  Jen- 
ner's  conduct  toward,  307, 350 ; 
warns  Emperor  Alexander 
against  him,  362  ;  first  cowpox 
missionary,  396 ;  a  fanatic, 
457. 

Walkley,  Hester,  pregnant  and 
variolated,  107. 

Waller,  Prof.,  Prague,  523. 

Ward's  drop,  21. 

Ward,  William  Gibson,  589. 

Warren,  Rev.  T.  A.,  292. 

Washington's  soldiers  variolated, 
57. 

Waterhouse,  Daniel  Oliver,  first 
vaccinated  in  New  England, 
and  put  to  variolous  test, 
376. 

Waterhouse,  Dr.,  knowledge  of 
smallpox  and  variolation  in 
New  England,  57,  58;  absence 
of  smallpox  in  1787,  58.  84, 
374;  introduces  vaccination, 
374,  376;  his  ready  faith,  375; 
experiments,  376;  advertise- 
ment, disasters,  tactics,  377 ; 
compliments  from  Jenner,  378; 
vaccinates  a  cow,  378 ;  vaccina- 
tion good  for  weakly  children 
and  whooping  -  cough,  378  ; 
cows  catch  smallpox,  379: 
opinion  of  negroes,  379 ;  Ring's 
"wit,"  379;  his  cautions  dis- 


INDEX. 


627 


regarded,  381 ;  bewildered  as 
to  epidemics,  382. 

Watson,  Sir  Thomas,  invaccination 
of  syphilis,  310. 

Watson,  Sir  William,  146. 

Watt,  Dr.  Robert,  discovery  in 
Glasgow,  439-452 ;  interdepen- 
dence of  forms  of  zymotic 
disease,  449,  504 ;  evidence 
from  West  Indies,  560. 

Webb,  Dr.  Francis,  547. 

Weller,  Richard,  vaccinated  by 
Cline,  128. 

Wellesley,  Marquis,  vaccination  in 
India,  386.  389. 

Wellington,  Duke  of,  323. 

Wesley,  John,  interest  in  medicine, 
37. 

West,  Dr.  Charles,  evidence  House 
of  Commons'  Committee,  1871, 
565. 

Westfaling,  Thomas,  102. 

Westminster,  Duke  of,  209. 

Wheeler,  Alexander,  586-587. 

Whitbread,  Mr.,  248. 

Whooping-cough,  cured  by  vac- 
cination, 378;  in  Newcastle, 
429 ;  in  Glasgow,  439. 

Wilberforce,  William,  184,  195, 
232,  247,  254;  urges  prohibi- 
tion of  variolation,  71 ;  Cob- 
bett's  letter,  305,  317. 

Wilkinson,  Dr.  J.  J.  Garth,  in 
Iceland,  422;  account  of  his 
opposition  to  vaccination,  548, 
549-550;  evidence  House  of 
Commons'  committee,  1871, 
554 ;  Vaccination  Tracts,  581- 
582  ;  process  of  blood-making, 
594-595. 

Willan,  Dr.,  66,  146;  treatise 
Vaccine  Inoculation,  266. 

Williams,  Perrot,  Welsh  variola- 
tion, 29. 

Willis,  Dr.  C.  J.,  Persia,  394. 


Wilson,  Bishop,  81. 

Winchester,  40. 

Windham,  Mr.,  71,  194,  233,  247. 

Witchcraft  and  vaccination,  525. 

Witham,  Mr.,  173. 

Wollaston,  Dr.,  371. 

Wood,  Dr.  Alex.,  evidence  as  to 
Scotland  House  of  Commons' 
committee,  1871,  563. 

Woodville,  Dr.  William,  supposed 
derivation  of  smallpox  from 
Animals,  138;  birth  and  career, 
145 ;  Anthony  Highmore's 
testimony,  163  ;  experiments 
with  horsegrease,  145,  163, 
335;  obtains  cowpox  in  London , 
145;  smallpox  eruptions  follow 
its  use,  146,  148,  149,  472; 
explanation,  149,  150,  151  : 
difference  from  Jenner,  158  ; 
testifies  for  Jenner,  188 ;  as 
seen  by  De  Carro  through 
Jenner,  265,  266 ;  Jenner's 
behaviour  toward,  350,  352; 
visits  Paris  and  vaccinates, 
169,  398  ;  work  in  conjunction 
with  Pearson,  197,  198,  200, 
203. 

Woodward,  Dr.,  1. 

Woolcombe,  Dr. ,  vicarious  mortal- 
ity, 449. 

Worcester,  189. 

Worgan,  Dawes,  259. 

Worthington,  Dr.,  89,  102. 

Wright,  Richard,  variolation  in 
Wales,  29. 

Wurtemburg,  revaccination  useless 
in  army,  520. 

Wynne,  Sarah,  smallpox  averts 
cowpox,  105-106. 

Wyld,  Dr.  George,  debate  with 
Alexander  Wheeler,  586. 

York,  Duke  of,  126,  168,  171,  219. 
Young,  William,  580,  581. 


H.  NISBET  AND  CO.,  PRINTERS,  STOCKWELL  STREET,  GLASGOW. 


The  LONDON  SOCIETY  for  the 
ABOLITION  of  COMPULSORY  VACCINATION, 

114  yiCTORIA  STREET,  WESTMINSTER,  S.W. 

OBJECTS    OF    THE    SOCIETY. 
I.— The  Abolition  of  Compulsory  Vaccination. 
II.— The  Diffusion  of  Knowledge  concerning  Vaccination. 
III.— The  Maintenance  in   London  of  an  Office  for  the  Publication  of 
Literature  relating  to  Vaccination,  and  as  a  Centre  of  Action 
and  Information. 


ADDRESS   OF  THE  SOCIETY. 

SMALLPOX  is  a  member  of  the  group  of  diseases  described  as  zymotic 
which  originate  in  unwholesome  conditions  of  life,  and  in  common  are 
diminished  and  prevented  by  the  reduction  and  removal  of  those  con- 
ditions. 

In  times  when  the  laws  of  health  were  imperfectly  understood,  it 
was  believed  that  by  poisoning  the  blood  with  the  virus  of  smallpox,  or 
covvpox,  a  future  attack  of  smallpox^  might  be  escaped.  While  many 
kindred  medical  practices  have  been  discredited  and  forgotten,  Vaccina- 
tion, endowed  by  the  State,  has  survived,  and  has  entered  into  legisla- 
tion, and  is  enforced  with  fine  and  imprisonment.  It  is  in  vain  for 
Nonconformists  to  plead  that  they  do  not  believe  that  Vaccination  has 
any  power  to  prevent  or  to  mitigate  smallpox,  or  that  it  is  attended  by 
the  risk  of  communicating  foul  diseases.  They  are  told  they  may 
believe  what  they  like,  but  that  vaccinated  they  must  be,  for  the  benehc 
of  the  rite  is  settled  beyond  dispute,  and  that  only  fools  and  fanatics 
venture  to  question  what  has  been  irrevocably  determined. 

It  is  to  attack  and  overthrow  this  monstrous  tyranny  that  the  LONDON 
SOCIETY  has  been  established.  The  members  desire  to  enlighten  the 
public  mind  as  to  the  history  of  Vaccination,  as  to  its  injury  in  com- 
municating and  intensifying  other  diseases,  and  as  to  the  failure  of  thu 
compulsory  law  to  stamp  out  or  even  diminish  the  ravages  of  smallpox. 
Many  too,  whilst  disinclined  to  discuss  Vaccination  as  a  medical  ques- 
tion, or  to  surrender  confidence  in  its  prophylaxy,  are  opposed  to  its 
compulsory  infliction.  They  maintain  that  every  remedy  should  be  left 
to  justify  itself  by  its  own  efficacy,  and  that  of  all  prescriptions  the  last 
which  requires  extraneous  assistance  is  Vaccination ;  for  its  repute  it> 
based  on  the  fact  that  its  subjects  are  secure  from  smallpox,  and  in  that, 
security  may  abide  indifferent  to  those  who  choose  to  neglect  its  salva- 
tion. Even  nurses  in  smallpox  hospitals,  it  is  said,  when  efficiently 
vaccinated  and  revaccinated,  live  unaffected  in  the  variolous  atmosphere. 
Therefore,  they  hold  that  to  compare  an  unvaccinated  person  to  a 
nuisance,  as  is  frequently  done,  is  to  make  use  of  an  epithet  that 
implicitly  denies  the  virtue  asserted  for  Vaccination,  a  nuisance  being 
a  voluntary  danger  or  annoyance  which  another  cannot  conveniently 
avoid.  They  also  hold  that  to  establish  any  medical  prescription,  and 
to  create  interests  identified  with  that  prescription,  is  to  erect  a  bar  to 
improvement;  for  it  is  obvious  that  any  novelty  in  the  treatment  of 


smallpox  must,  in  the  constitution  of  human  nature,  meet  with  resist- 
ance from  those  whose  emoluments  are  vested  in  the  established  practice. 
The  LONDON  SOCIETY,  therefore,  claims  to  enlist  the  energies,  not  only 
of  those  who  resist  Vaccination  as  useless  and  mischievous,  but  also  of 
those  who,  true  to  their  faith  in  liberty,  would  leave  its  acceptance  to 
the  discretion  of  the  individual.  In  the  controversy  into  which  they 
enter,  they  propose  to  employ  all  the  familiar  agencies  wherewith  in 
England  revolutions  are  effected  in  the  public  mind  and  in  Parliament ; 
and  they  appeal  with  confidence  for  the  sympathy  and  support  of  their 
countrymen.  The  Vaccination  Acts  under  which  they  suffer  have  not 
been  enacted  with  the  full  cognizance  of  the  nation,  but  have  been  forced 
through  indifferent  Parliaments  by  the  persistency  of  medical  faction. 
The  members  of  the  SOCIETY  are  confident  that,  as  soon  as  the  truth 
about  Vaccination  is  fully  known  and  appreciated,  the  freedom  they 
contend  for  will  be  conceded  without  fear,  and  that  posterity  will  view 
with  amazement  the  outrage  upon  human  right  and  reason  that  is  at 
present  committed  under  the  shadow  of  English  liberty. 

Prejudice,  which  sees  what  it  pleases,  cannot  see  what  is  plain.— AUBREY  DE  VKRE. 
He  who  knows  only  his  own  side  of  the  case,  knows  little  of  that.— J.  STUART  MILL. 


Che  Daccinatton  inquirer, 

The  Organ  of  the  London  Society  for  the  Abolition 

of  Compulsory  Vaccination. 
Published  Monthly,  price  Id.,  or  Is.  6d.  per  annum,  post  free. 

I  WOULD  earnestly  invite  the  attention  of  those  who  are  concerned  for 
the  repression  of  wrong,  and  the  promotion  of  human  welfare,  to  the 
great  and  growing  question  of  Vaccination.  We  hear  on  every  side 
that  we  cannot  be  secure  from  Smallpox  unless  we  have  our  blood 
poisoned  with  Cowpox  in  infancy,  in  adolescence,  and  at  stated  periods 
throughout  life.  The  prescription  is  so  unnatural  that  only  custom 
renders  it  tolerable  ;  it  excites  suspicion  and  aversion  wherever  ration- 
ally considered ;  and  dislike  and  disgust  are  justified  by  inquiry. 
Smallpox  is  not  averted  by  Vaccination  ;  and  the  virus  introduced  to 
the  blood  bears  with  it  other  diseases,  even  the  worst  of  diseases,  and 
enfeebles  and  predisposes  the  constitution  to  other  maladies.  In  short, 
Vaccination  under  cover  of  maintaining  the  common  health  inflicts 
upon  it  serious  and  deadly  injuries.  And  by  a  strange  exercise  of 
tyranny,  this  most  mischievous  superstition  is  made  compulsory  and 
enforced  by  fine  and  imprisonment ;  and  Englishmen  are  dragged  from 
their  homes  and  treated  as  convicts  because  they  refuse  to  submit  their 
children  to  the  abominable  rite.  Mr.  BRIGHT  says,  "THE  LAW  is 
MONSTROUS,  AND  OUGHT  TO  BE  REPEALED."  Yet  is  this  monstrous  law 
maintained  ! 

Possibly  you  are  opposed  to  Vaccination,  or  indifferent,  or  a  believer. 
In  any  case,  I  ask  you  to  subscribe  for  the  VACCINATION  INQUIRER.  If 
you  are  opposed  to  Vaccination,  it  will  stimulate  and  inform  your 
opposition  ;  if  indifferent,  it  will  remove  your  indifference ;  if  you  are 
a  believer  in  the  rite,  it  may  convert  you  to  a  better  mind. 
WILLIAM  YOUNG,  Secretary, 

114  Victoria  Street,  WESTMINSTER. 


WORKS  ON  VACCINATION. 

William    White. 

SIR  LYON  PLAYFAIR  taken  to  Pieces  and  disposed  of :  likewise  Sir 
Charles  W.  Dilke,  Bart. :  being  a  Dissection  of  their  Speeches  in  the 
House  of  Commons  on  19th  June,  1883,  in  defence  of  Compulsory  Vacci- 
nation. Second  Edition.  6th  thousand.  Is. 

"It  is  a  very  dainty  pamphlet  of  two  hundred  pages,  so  printed  that  it  is  a  luxury 
to  read.  There  are  six  pages  of  index,  which  will  give  some  idea  of  its  fulness  of  mat- 
ter. Mr.  White  does  all  his  work  in  a  workmanlike  way,  and  this  work  is  no  exception. 
He  gives  the  two  speeches  of  Playfair  and  Dilke  in  full,  and  fully  answers  them.  They 
are  literally  taken  to  pieces  and  disposed  of.  Read  William  White  on  Playfair  and 
Dilke.  It  is  the  end  of  controversy.  Reply  is  impossible."— Herald  of  Health, 

"Mr.  White  has  done  what  has  never  been  done  before,— that  is,  he  has  taken  to 
pieces  Sir  Lyon  Playfair's  speech,  analysed  his  arguments,  and  exposed  much  of  what 
is  untrustworthy.  The  book  ought  to  be  in  the  hands  of  all  who  desire  to  understand 
the  question  of  vaccination." — Newcastle  Weekly  Chronicle. 

"This  is  a  clever  and  most  reasonable  criticism  and  overhauling-  of  Playfair  and 
Dilke's  opinions,  of  which  the  best  idea  can  be  gained  from  a  study  of  the  book  itself, 
which  will  be  found  complete  in  every  detail."—  Brighton  Gazette. 

"The  official  vindication  of  vaccination  was  contained  in  Sir  Lyon  Playfair's  speech 
backed  up  by  Sir  Charles  Dilke,  and  Mr.  White  has  taken  the  various  points  of  both 
speeches,  item  by  item,  and  has  replied  to  them  with  a  clearness  and  effectiveness 
which  must  go  far  to  shake  the  foundation  of  vaccination  itself;  whilst,  in  our  view, 
it  effectually  disposes  of  the  plea  for  compulsory  vaccination." — Northamptonshire 
Guardian. 

"  Anti-Vaccinationists  will  gloat  over  these  pages.  It  is  said  that  anything  can  be 
done  with  figures.  We  certainly  at  the  time  thought  that  Sir  Lyon  Playfair  showed 
they  were  in^avour  of  vaccination.  On  reading  Mr.  White's  book  we  are  just  as  keenly 
impressed  with  an  opposite  view.  We  recommend  the  work  to  our  readers.  "—Eastern 
Daily  Press. 

"  A  remarkably  well-written  book  by  a  practised  hand.  The  subject  is  an  unlovely 
one,  and  the  proverbial  '  both  sides '  have  much  to  say  ;  but  this  book  ought  to 
interest,  amuse,  and  inform  both  sides.  It  everywhere  tells  of  patient  thought, 
industrious  research,  and  a  keen  mind."— The  Truthseeker. 

Alfred    Russel   Wallace,    LL.D. 

Author  of  The  Malay  Archipelago,  the  Land  of  the  Orang-Utan  and  Bird  of  Para- 
dise, 1869 ;  Contributions  to  the  Theory  of  Natural  Selection,  1871 ;  The  Geo- 
graphical Distribution  of  Animals,  1876;  Island  Life,  or  The  Phenomena  and 
'Causes  of  Island  Faunas  and  Floras,  1880 ;  Land  Nationalisation,  its  Necessity 
and  Aims,  1882  ;  etc. 

To  Members  of  Parliament.  FORTY-FIVE  YEARS  or  REGISTRATION 
STATISTICS  ;  proving  Vaccination  to  be  both  Useless  and  Dangerous.  6d. 

William   Tebb. 

COMPULSORY  VACCINATION  IN  ENGLAND  :  with  Incidental  References 
to  Foreign  States.  Is. 

"  Not  only  crowds  but  Sanhedrims  are  infected  with  public  lunacy. "— DRYDEN. 

Contents  .-—Vaccination  Results.  Vaccination  in  the  Workhouse. 
Vaccination  in  Public  Schools.  Vaccination  in  the  Post  Office.  Vac- 
cination in  the  Police  Force.  Vaccination  in  the  Army.  Vaccination  in 
the  Navy.  Vaccination  in  the  Prisons.  Vaccination  in  Life  Assurance. 
Vaccination  amongst  Emigrants. 


P.  A.  Siljestrom. 

A  MOMENTOUS  EDUCATION*  QUESTION  for  the  Consideration  of  Parents 
and  Others  who  desire  the  well-being  of  the  Rising  Generation.  Trans- 
lated from  the  Swedish  by  Dr.  Garth  Wilkinson.  4d. 

P.  A.  Taylor,  late  M.P.  for  Leicester. 

CURRENT  FALLACIES  ABOUT  VACCINATION.  A  Letter  to  Dr.  W.  B. 
Carpenter,  C.B.  Id. 

SPEECHES  of  Mr.  P.  A.  Taylor  and  Mr.  C.  H.  Hopwood  in  the  House 
of  Commons  on  19th  June,  1883.  6d. 

PERSONAL  RIGHTS.     6d. 

Alexander  Wheeler. 

VACCINATION  UNTIL  1883.     6d. 

This  Essay  is  dedicated  to  those  whose  minds  are  sufficiently  loyal 
to  Science  to  be  free  to  examine  without  prejudice,  the  most  prejudiced 
question  of  the  day. 

J.  J.  Garth  Wilkinson,  M.D.,  and  Wm.  Young. 

VACCINATION  TRACTS  with  Preface  and  Supplement.     2s.  6d. 

1.  Letters  and  Opinions  of  Medical  Men. 

2.  Facts  and  Figures  showing  that  Vaccination  has  failed  to  stamp 

out,  arrest,  or  mitigate  Smallpox. 

3  &  4.  Opinions  of  Statesmen,   Politicians,   Publicists,    Statisticians, 
and  Sanitarians. 

5.  Cases  of  Disease,  Suffering,  and  Death  reported  by  the   Injured 

Families. 

6.  The  Vaccination  Laws  a  Scandal  to  Public  Honesty  and  Religion. 

7.  Vaccination  a  sign  of  the  Decay  of  the  Political  and  Medical  Con- 

'  science  of  the  Country. 

8.  The  Propagation  of  Syphilis  to  Infants  and  Adults  by  Vaccination 

and  Re-Vaccination. 

9.  Vaccination  evil  in  its  Principles,  false  in  its  Reasons,  and  deadly 

in  its  Results. 

10.  Vaccination  subverts  Dentition,  and  is  the  Cause  of  the  prevalent 

Deformity  and  Decay  of  the  Teeth. 

11.  Compulsory  Vaccination  a  Desecration  of  Law,  a  Breaker  of  Homes, 

and  Persecutor  of  the  Poor. 

12.  Historical  and  Critical  Summary  in  Three  Parts.     Part  I. — The 

Imposture  of  the  current  Smallpox  Lymph  called  Vaccine,  and 
the  new  Imposture  of  Calf  Lymph.  Also,  the  Chaos  of  Statute 
Law  dealing  with  Vaccine  Substance. 

13.  Part  II. — The  Cry  of  the  People  against  Vaccination  is  seconded  by 

the  Registrar-General's  Returns,  and  justified  by  the  Evidence 
of  Pathology. 

14.  Part  III. — Pro  Aris  et  Focis.     The  Religious  Nature  and  Political 

Necessity  of  the  Vaccination  War. 


E.  W.  ALLEN,  4  AVE  MAKIA  LANE,  LONDON,  E.G. 


FOURTEEN  DAY  USE 

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